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RELIGION AND EDUCATION 



AMEEICA: 



WITH NOTICES OF THE STATE AND PROSPECTS 



OF 



AMERICAN UNITARIANISM, POPERY, AND 
AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 



JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D„ 

SENIOR MINISTER OF THK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN NEW SOUTH VALK! 
PRINCIPAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE, AND 
HONORARY VICE- PRESIDENT OF THE AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, 



" Ich bin Sfanz Hirer Meinung. Die Kirche soil keine Schlnvhi, sondern eine frcie 
Dienerin des Kerrn, seyn." — Gossner of BerJisi. Letter to the Author. 



5 LONDON: 



THOMAS WARD AND CO., 

PATERNOSTER-ROW. 



1840, 






rft" 



» v" 



TO THE CHRISTIAN LAITY 



THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, 



Fellow-Countrymen and Fellow-Christians, 

The following work was commenced on the 1st of 
June last, on board the steam-ship, British Queen, in 
the Bay of New York, and was written partly during 
my voyage across the Atlantic, and partly in the midst 
of numerous and sometimes harassing avocations since 
my return to England. There are deficiencies in its 
plan and arrangement, which you will easily perceive, 
and which a little leisure might probably have enabled 
me to obviate. There may be discrepancies also 
between some of its statements on minor points, which 
a word or two of explanation, if I had perceived them 
in time, would doubtless have enabled me to reconcile. 
But such as it is, I inscribe it to you ; because I am 
strongly of opinion that it is just such a work as is 
wanted in Scotland in the present important crisis of 
our National Church. 

We have long been deluding ourselves with the idea 



]V TO THE CHRISTIAN LAITY 

that the Sovereign of Great Britain is not the Head of 
the Church of Scotland as she is of that of England, 
and that we enjoy great religious liberty in our beloved 
land. We have been awakened at length from this 
dream of self-delusion. The British Parliament, or at 
least the House of Lords, has told us through some of 
its most distinguished organs, that, as members of the 
Church of Scotland, we are merely the " Hereditary 
Bondsmen" of the civil magistrate, and that it is the 
fixed determination of Parliament to keep us in this 
degrading condition while it has the power ! 

As members of the Church of Scotland, we all 
profess to venerate those Christian and apostolic men 
who built the wall of our Zion in troublous times and 
cemented it with their blood. We build their sepul- 
chres, after a most respectable example in Jewish 
antiquity ; we erect columns to their memory, and call 
our churches by their names. But do we cherish their 
spirit, or follow their example ? I trow not. 

The inscription on the blue banner of the Presby- 
terians of the seventeenth century was, " For Christ's 
Crown and Covenant." They would tolerate no other 
Headship of the Church than that of Christ himself : 
they would suffer no mortal to occupy the Redeemer's 
throne. True to their allegiance to the King of Zion, 
they were ever ready to sacrifice not only their 
property but their lives at his bidding ; to seal their 
testimony with their blood. 

The present is a crisis of a somewhat similar kind ; 
inasmuch as it calls loudly for the exercise of self- 



OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. V 

denial and for personal sacrifices, on the part of the office- 
bearers of our National Church. The freedom and inde- 
pendence of the Church of Scotland can no longer be 
preserved along with its temporalities. The Lords of 
Parliament are determined that the holders of the 
latter shall not be the free servants of the Lord Christ, 
the only King of Zion, but the " hereditary bondsmen" 
of the State. In such circumstances it becomes the 
bounden duty of all who value the freedom and inde- 
pendence of the Church, and who would maintain their 
allegiance to her only King and Head, to renounce the 
temporalities altogether, and to throw themselves at 
once upon the Christianity of the people. In short, it is 
not mere agitation and empty declamation about non- 
intrusion, but self-denial and sacrifice that the time 
calls for. 

When the ancient Roman people were treated in a 
somewhat similar manner by their Parliament, they 
retired in a body from their city of Rome, and, 
encamping on the " Mons Sacer" or Holy Hill in the 
neighbourhood, left their Parliament to do with the 
city-property what they chose. Precisely the same 
course is open to the real friends of the Church of 
Scotland in the present crisis. They can retire in a 
body to the Holy Hill of Zion, and entrench themselves 
there where the wall of fire will still surround them, and 
God, even our God, will dwell in the midst of them as of 
old. In short, they can tell the Parliament that the 
Church of Scotland shall be free and independent from 
henceforth, and leave them to dispose of her State 



Vi TO THE CHRISTIAN LAITY, &C. 

endowments as they please. This would indeed be 
acting in the spirit, and following the example, of our 
forefathers. But our forefathers — where are they? 

The following work will, I trust, show you suffi- 
ciently that such a course, which I apprehend is the 
course of duty in the present crisis, would also be a 
course of safety. It were a vile calumny upon the 
people of Scotland to insinuate that they would be less 
willing to support the Church of Christ, if set free 
from the degrading bondage of her State-connexion, 
than the people of America. The American Presby- 
terians are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh ; 
and their Church — so superior to our own in the good 
works of self-denial and self-devotedness and Christian 
liberality — requires no endowment from the State for 
its support; neither would its members suffer any man, 
in the capacity of a civil magistrate, to put forth his 
hand, under any pretext, to that Ark of God, in its pas- 
sage from the land of the Philistines to its place on Mount 
Zion ; being assured that the sacred symbol will only 
move the more steadily, the more securely for all parties, 
and the more triumphantly, if the civil magistrate will 
but keep his " hands off," and let it alone. 

With earnest desires for your spiritual and eternal 
welfare, I have the honour to be, 

Fellow-countrymen and Fellow-Christians, 
Your sincere well-wisher, 

JOHN DUNMORE LANG. 

London, 

August 12, 1840. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Introduction . . . . . .1 



CHAPTER I. 

Origin of the Inhabitants of the Atlantic States of America . 1 1 

CHAPTER II. 

View of the state of Religion, and of the Ecclesiastical Esta- 
blishments of the American Colonies, previous to the 
Revolution . . . ■ . .46 

CHAPTER III. 

History of the Establishment of the Voluntary System in 

America . . . . . .91 

CHAPTER IV. 

General Results of the Voluntary System in the United States 

— Church Accommodation . . . .130 

CHAPTER V. 

General Results of the Voluntary System in America. — Minis- 
terial Character and Efficiency . . . .190 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Voluntary System in the United States not open to the 

charge of Infidelity . . . . .250 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Page 

Sketch of the Principal Religious Denominations in the 

United States . . . . . .307 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Unitarianism in the United States . . . .368 

CHAPTER IX. 

Popery in America . . . . .392 

CHAPTER X. 

Slavery, Abolition, and African Colonization . .419 

Postscript . . . . . . 466 



RELIGION 

AND 

THE VOLTJNTAKY SYSTEM 

IN AMERICA. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The main object I had in view in visiting the United 
States of America was different, perhaps, from that of 
every other European who had previously crossed the 
Atlantic. It was to endeavour to interest the American 
Presbyterian Church, of whose character and zeal I had 
long entertained a favourable opinion, in the diffusion 
of Christian knowledge, and the blessings of civilization 
in the southern hemisphere ; but more especially in 
those parts of that hemisphere in which a series of 
British colonies has recently been successfully planted, 
at the ends of the earth — I mean the continent of New 
Holland, and the adjacent islands. 

On embarking for America with this view, I had no 
intention to write a book of travels, or, indeed, to pub- 
lish any thing on the subject of my visit, on my return 
to Europe. But having incidentally taken up Captain 
Marryat's " Diary in America," in the course of my 
voyage out, I was so greatly astounded at certain of his 
statements, in regard to the influence and effects of the 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

Voluntary System in the United States, that I de- 
termined to make particular inquiry on the subject dur- 
ing my own stay in the country, to ascertain the cor- 
rectness of these statements on the one hand, or to be 
enabled to disprove them on the other. In the course 
of my subsequent inquiries, conducted with this view, 
I very soon ascertained that the statements I allude to 
were altogether unfounded, and could only have been 
made, either in entire ignorance of the subject, on 
which the frivolous, but entertaining, novel-writer had 
presumed to issue his dictatorial opinions, or with a wil- 
ful intention to mislead. I am quite willing, however, 
that Captain M. should take the benefit of the former 
of these suppositions, and shelter his gross mistate- 
ments, in regard to the morals and religion of the Ame- 
rican people, under the plea of ignorance and presump- 
tion. 

In the course of my visit to America, and especially 
in consequence of the inquiries to which I have just 
alluded, I became apprised of many facts and circum- 
stances, illustrative of the general operation of the pe- 
culiar ecclesiastical system that now obtains universally 
in the United States, which were not generally known 
in England, and which, it appeared to me, it would be 
of some importance to the cause of truth for the reli- 
gious public in Great Britain to know. With this view, 
I was induced to commit my observations to writing, 
and to submit them, as I now do, to the public, through 
the press. 

In addition to the main object I had in view in visit- 
ing America, I was influenced by various other conside- 
rations, one of which I shall mention. In the course 
of a long residence in the Australian colonies, I had 
gradually been led to the firm belief and conviction, 
that the system of a universal establishment of religion, 
which at present obtains in these colonies, and the prin- 
ciple of which is to grant salaries from the public trea- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

sury to the ministers of all religious denominations, in 
proportion to the number of their respective adherents, 
was latitudinarian in its character, and calculated rather 
to retard, than to promote, the advancement of genuine 
Christianity ; and I was therefore desirous of witnessing 
for myself the working of a totally different system — I 
mean the Voluntary System* — in a state of society some- 
what similar to that of the British colonies, and in which, 
moreover, the natural operation of that system was un- 
checked and unfettered by the contemporaneous exis- 
tence of any religious establishment. For, as it re- 
quires no superior discernment to foresee that, in the 
natural course of events, the universal establishment 
system, which now prevails in the Australian colonies, 
cannot subsist long, and will, in all likelihood, merge 
very speedily into the Voluntary System, it is amatter 
of no small importance to all concerned, to ascertain 
beforehand, by a reference to actual facts in the his- 
tory of other communities, the state of things in regard 
to morals and religion which is likely to result from its 
discontinuance. 

In regard to the general working of the politico- 
ecclesiastical system which now prevails in the Aus- 
tralian colonies, the first of its effects has been to ele- 
vate the Romish priesthood, and the whole system of 
colonial Popery to a degree of pre-eminence and power 
in these colonies, which they could never otherwise have 
attained — an effect which will doubtless be regarded by 
all sincere Protestants, as an unmixed evil. A great 
effort, it is well known, is now making, in various ways 
and from various quarters, to form a permanent strong- 
hold and centre of influence for Popery in the southern 
hemisphere ; and I am confident there is nothing that 
will tend so strongly to render this effort successful, as 
the establishment of the politico-ecclesiastical system 
which now obtains in the Australian colonies. 

The establishment of that system has served also, as 
far at least as present appearances can justify the anti- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

cipation, to stereotype the Colonial Episcopal Church, 
for all time coming, upon the model of the old High 
Church and Oxford Tract editions. There are many, 
doubtless, in England who will regard such a result with 
satisfaction ; but as I address myself particularly to men 
who hold the doctrinal articles of the Church of Eng- 
land, whether members of that church or not, and have 
no sympathy with the semi-popish figments of certain of 
its modern divines, " who say they are apostles, and are 
not, but are liars," I deem it unnecessary to say any 
thing further on the subject. It is certain, at all events, 
that if religion had been left entirely to itself in the 
Australian colonies, the Episcopal- Church in these 
colonies would not have taken the anti-protestant form 
it has already assumed, under the existing system. 

Another evil effect of the system has been, in a great 
measure, to render the Presbyterian Church in the Aus- 
tralian colonies a mere receptacle or asylum for inferior 
men, who have been rejected by the Christian people, 
or have proved utterly inefficient at home. For so long 
as Government salaries are obtainable on easy terms in 
these colonies, such men — and I am sorry to say they 
are numerous in Scotland — will be attracted to their 
territories, as surely as the dead carcase attracts the 
carrion-crow. 

In short, greatly preferable as is the politico- ecclesi- 
astical system now in operation in the Australian colo- 
nies to the one which it superseded — under which the 
Episcopal Church enjoyed something like an exclusive 
establishment — inasmuch as it has restored peace to the 
colonies, and put an end to the cry of injustice and op- 
pression ; it cannot be denied that it is altogether lati- 
tudinarian in its character, and anti-christian in its ten- 
dency ; and I am decidedly of opinion, therefore, that 
Christianity will never make much progress in these im- 
portant settlements till it is swept utterly away.* 

* There is a moral certainty that the Voluntary System will very 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

If I were a voluntary myself — receiving no support 
from the State as a minister of religion, and professing 
to regard it as unscriptural to receive such support— 
my opinion on such a subject as this, would, I confess, 
be liable to suspicion : for men are rarely unbiassed in 
any case in which their pecuniary interests are concerned ; 
and in these peaceful times, especially, in which the 
mere declaration of opinions implies no sacrifice what- 
ever, it cannot be denied that conscience is often called 
on to give evidence in favour of particular opinions, 

soon become the law of the land in New South Wales. The enor- 
mous expenditure of a convict colony, which has been unfortu- 
nately entailed upon that settlement, already exceeds the whole 
amount of its ordinary revenue ; and recourse has accordingly been 
had very recently to the suicidal policy of appropriating, for the com- 
mon exigencies of the public service, the revenue arising from the 
sale of Crown land — which, it was universally supposed by the colo- 
nists, had been appropriated exclusively for the promotion of the 
emigration of virtuous and industrious persons from Great Britain 
and Ireland. To restore this revenue to its proper use, taxation to 
a large amount must now be resorted to ; and it cannot be doubted, 
that whenever the colonists come to be taxed, as they certainly will 
very shortly, to the amount of from £50,000 to jgl 00,000, per 
annum, for the support of three or four contemporaneous established 
churches, they will just do what the Americans found it both expe- 
dient and necessary to do, in precisely similar circumstances, by 
refusing the tax, and leaving all these churches to the Christian 
feelings and affections of their respective adherents. So long as the 
salaries of the colonial clergy are paid from the Custom-house chest, 
or the produce of indirect taxation, the colonists are not likely to 
murmur ; but the case will be prodigiously altered when they come 
to be paid from a revenue arising from direct taxation. The co- 
lonists will then most certainly refuse the rate, and leave the clergy 
to the operation of the Voluntary System. I do not mean to in- 
sinuate, however, that the people of New South Wales will be un- 
willing to support religion when they come to be taxed directly for 
upholding its ordinances ; I only mean to assert, that, under the 
present system, the pressure on the colonial treasury will very soon 
be so enormous, in proportion to the real service rendered to the 
community, that that system will certainly be superseded, at no 
very remote period, by another and better system which, from its 
efficient working elsewhere, has already been found to supply the 
Christian people with much more efficient service for far less money. 

b2 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

with which ^he has in reality nothing to do. But as I 
have voluntarily subscribed the Westminster Confession 
of Faith, including the chapter on the Civil Magistrate,* 
as a regularly ordained minister of the Church of Scot- 
land, and have, therefore, no scruples of conscience 
about the lawfulness of receiving support from the State ; 
nay, as I have actually received, for the last fifteen years 
and upwards, the highest salary allowed by the State 
to any minister in the denomination I belong to, in 
my adopted country, it will be evident that I have some- 
thing to lose as an individual in the case in question, 
and that I ought, therefore, as far as my own pecuniary 
interests are concerned, to be an advocate of things as 
they are, rather than of things as they should he. In 
so far, then, as my evidence in the following pages may 
go to recommend the -adoption of the Voluntary System, 
instead of the one actually in operation in the Australian 
colonies, it will, at least, have the rare merit of disin- 
terestedness, and not be liable to suspicion. 

As to the bearing which evidence in favour of the 
Voluntary System may be supposed to have on the 
avowed principles of a minister of the Church of Scot- 
land, I observe, that when the learned and pious men 

* The Chapter I refer to is as follows : — 

" 1. God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath or- 
dained civil magistrates to be under him over the people, for his own 
glory, and the public good ; and, to this end, hath armed them with 
the power of the sword, for the defence and encouragement of them 
that are good, and for the punishment of evil doers." 

" 3, The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the adminis- 
tration of the word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven ; yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to 
take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the 
truth of God be kept pure and entire ; that all blasphemies and he- 
resies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship or disci- 
pline be prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly 
settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting where- 
of, he hath power to call Synods, to be present at them, and to pro- 
vide that -whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind 
c f God."— Chap. 22. Of the Civil Magistrate. 

4 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

who drew up the Westminster Confession of Faith laid 
it down as a principle of doctrine, that it was the duty 
of the civil magistrate to establish and to support reli- 
gion, they took it for granted that it was the true reli- 
gion, as described in that Confession, and no other, that 
he was bound to support. And, accordingly, when the 
Scottish Parliament passed a resolution, in the year 
1705, pending the negotiations for the union with Eng- 
land, to the effect, " That the English Parliament had a 
right to take what security they thought fit for the main- 
tenance of the system of Prelacy within the realm of 
England," the Commission of the General Assembly, 
which was sitting at Edinburgh at the time, remonstrated 
and protested against the said resolution ; alleging that 
it would bring guilt upon the Scottish nation, to assert 
that the civil magistrate had a right to establish Prelacy 
any where. It cannot be denied, indeed, that this is no 
longer the doctrine of a large majority of the Scottish 
clergy ; the prevalent doctrine of that body being simply 
the Erastian doctrine, that the civil magistrate has the 
same right to establish Prelacy in one country, as he has 
to establish Presbytery in another — a doctrine altogether 
at variance with the Westminster Confession.* 

It follows, as a necessary consequence from the 
principle I have stated, that when the civil magistrate 

* Of course, I would not object to a conscientious Episcopa- 
lian, who held the divine right of Episcopacy, maintaining, in accord- 
ance with his own principles, that it was wrong for the civil magis- 
trate to establish Presbytery. I wish every man to carry out his 
religious principles to their full extent ; and my object, in these re- 
marks, is simply to anticipate the accusation that I have betrayed 
mine, in pleading for the establishment of the Voluntary System in 
Australia. This charge, I know, will be brought against me, with 
the utmost eagerness, by men who have never made any sacrifice 
themselves for the principles they profess to hold, and who, I have 
reason to believe, never would, if they were put to the test. But 
Christianity is a religion of self-denial, and a man's real principles 
can never be known, without knowing what he is willing to sacrifice 
for them. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

is either unable or unwilling to establish the true reli- 
gion, it is perfectly accordant with the duty of a mi- 
nister of religion, holding the Westminster Confession, 
to recommend that he should leave religion entirely 
alone. A Christian man, holding the principle of a 
religious establishment, may, in perfect consistency 
with that principle, adopt such a course in any given 
case, (as, for instance, in that of the Australian colo- 
nies,) where an exclusive establishment, in favour of 
any one denomination, is confessedly impracticable, 
and where the acknowledged effect of the universal 
establishment system is the encouragement and propa- 
gation of Popery ; but it is impossible for a Christian 
man to maintain the principle, that the civil magistrate 
may rightfully establish any form of religion, whether 
truth or error. 

Entertaining these sentiments, I confess I went forth 
into the field of observation in America altogether un- 
trammeled ; and, consequently, instead of being dis- 
appointed, as a churchman, at finding so much in favour 
of the Voluntary System in that country, I rather re- 
joiced, in the anticipation of the benefits which, I 
foresaw, it was likely to confer on my adopted country, 
when the evil and anti-christian system of a universal 
establishment, under which it now labours, should 
have passed away and been forgotten. 

I was not a little strengthened in this feeling by the 
sentiments I found prevailing among the few ministers 
and licentiates of the Church of Scotland whom I 
happened to meet with in the United States. One of 
these, a fellow-student of my own at the university of 
Glasgow, and a licentiate of the Presbytery of that 
city, whom I found as the minister of a Presbyterian 
church in the synod of Albany, in the state of New 
York, expressed, in the strongest terms, his entire con- 
fidence in the sufficiency of the Voluntary System, as 
a means of providing for the regular dispensation of 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

the ordinances of religion in Christian countries, as 
well as of sending the gospel to the unconverted hea- 
then. Nay, the only minister of the Church of Scot- 
land in the United States, who stands unconnected 
with the American Presbyterian Church, and still 
maintains a species of connexion with the Church of 
Scotland, — I mean the Rev. Mr. Forrest, of Charleston, 
South Carolina, — I found a thorough and decided vo- 
luntary ; not, indeed, in the ultra sense of maintaining 
that any connexion between church and state is un- 
warranted by the word of God, and positively sinful, 
but in that of maintaining the entire sufficiency of the 
voluntary system for the maintenance of religion 
throughout the Christian world, and especially through- 
out the United States of America. A declaration of 
such sentiments, on the part of Mr. Forrest, was the 
more unexpected on my part, as, up to the period of 
his leaving Scotland, about six or eight years ago, he 
had regarded as his magnus Apollo the late Principal 
Baird of Edinburgh, and was strongly attached to the 
principles and views of the moderate party — the party 
in the Church of Scotland who regard the Church as 
the mere creature of the State. But mere theory, 
however strongly inculcated in one's youth, cannot be 
expected to stand against the evidence of personal 
experience and ocular demonstration in the period of 
vigorous manhood. 

The portion of the United States I visited, and 
partly traversed, during my stay in America, was the 
States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode 
Island, in New England ; New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania, commonly called the Middle States; and 
the slave-holding States of Delaware, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. I also 
spent a few days in the district of Columbia. I did 
not visit any of the Western States in the great valley 
of the Mississippi ; first, because I had no leisure for 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

such a visit ; secondly, because, from my long residence 
in the Australian colonies, I was already sufficiently 
acquainted with the processes usually resorted to by 
civilized men, in first penetrating into the great wilder- 
ness of nature — the operation of settling, as it is tech- 
nically called, being much the same in all new coun- 
tries ; and thirdly, because, as I conceived, I was fully 
warranted in regarding the Western States of America 
as standing in precisely the same relation to the Eastern 
as the British colonies do to the mother country, they 
were of lesser importance in regard to the particular 
subject of inquiry to which my attention was principally 
directed during my visit. 

Although I determined, in the course of the follow- 
ing work, to adhere pretty closely to the subject an- 
nounced at the head of each chapter, I did not consider 
myself precluded from introducing occasional narra- 
tives, episodes, and digressions of various kinds, to 
relieve the tedium of a dry detail of facts, or of a 
mere argumentative deduction from these facts ; espe- 
cially when such deviations from the due course tended 
to throw additional light upon the moral and religious 
aspects of American society. 



CHAPTER I. 



ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE ATLANTIC 
STATES OF AMERICA. 

Most of the English writers on America have erred 
egregiously in endeavouring to account for the singular 
moral phenomena which that country presents, by as- 
cribing them to the influence of its civil government, 
or political institutions. The fact is, that the character 
of the American people was formed and developed long 
before they had a government of their own ; and it was 
rather that character that impressed itself on the po- 
litical institutions of their country, than the government 
that formed and modelled the character of the people. 

M. de Tocqueville, in his admirable work entitled 
" Democracy in America," points to the true mode of 
solving the problem in question, in the following pro- 
found remark : — " The growth of nations presents some- 
thing analogous to the growth of a human being, from 
infancy to manhood — they all bear some marks of their 
origin ; and the circumstances which accompanied their 
birth, and contributed to their rise, affect the whole 
term of their being,"* And again : — " Their forefathers 
imported that equality of conditions into the country 
from whence the democratic republic has very naturally 
taken its rise. Nor was this all they did ; for, besides 
this republican condition of society, the early settlers 

* Democracy in America. By M. de Tocqueville. Page 10. 
Second American edition, New York, 1838. 



12 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

bequeathed to their descendants those customs, man- 
ners, and opinions, which contribute most to the success 
of a republican form of government. When I reflect 
upon the consequences of this primary circumstance, 
methinks I see the destiny of America embodied in the 
first puritan who landed on those shores, just as the 
human race was represented by the first man."* It is 
necessary, therefore, to ascertain the origin of the great 
mass of the American people, in order to arrive at a 
philosophical conclusion in regard to their present con- 
dition and character as a nation. With this view, I 
shall briefly enumerate the principal streams of emigra- 
tion that continued to flow from the European continent 
to the American colonies, from their first settlement, in 
the reign of James the First, till the war of independ- 
ence. Of these, the first in importance, if not in time, 
is the Puritan emigration to New England. 

That portion of the United States of America which 
is commonly called New England, comprising the States 
of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and bounded by the 
State of New York on the south, and the British pos- 
sessions on the north, was originally colonized from 
England, during the tyranny of the Stuarts. The origin 
and character of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England 
are well known, and the names of these venerable men 
are well worthy of everlasting remembrance. The vic- 
tims of a cruel oppression in their native land, they 
went forth, in search of civil and religious liberty, to an 
inhospitable wilderness, — M not knowing whither they 
went," nor what should befal them ; but He, whom 
alone they feared, mercifully guided their steps, and at 
length crowned their enterprise with immortal honour. 
For, after suffering innumerable hardships, they were 
enabled, in the far distant land of their exile, not only 

* Democracy in America, page 271. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 13 

to plant the tree of civil and religious liberty in a con- 
genial soil, but to lay the broad foundations of as fair a 
structure of national greatness as the world has ever 
yet beheld * 

During the first twenty years of the existence of 
the New England colonies, not fewer than twenty- 
one thousand emigrants arrived in their territory, who 
were virtually expelled from their native land by the 
cruel intolerance of Charles the First, and his worthy 
agent, 'Archbishop Laud. The great majority of the 
English Puritans were then Presbyterians ; but, as the 
first colonists of New England, and several of the most 
distinguished of the New England clergy, were Brown- 
ists, or Independents, an ecclesiastical system, embody- 
ing the main features of both of these denominations, 
was at length devised and agreed on by a mutual com- 
promise, and has subsisted, with eminent benefit to the 
country, to the present day. Of that system, I shall 
give a more particular account in a subsequent 
chapter. 

During the civil wars and the usurpation of Crom- 
well, emigration to New England appears to have 
ceased, and many even of the original emigrants ac- 
tually returned to their native land. The Act of Uni- 
formity, however, and the other oppressive measures of 
the reign of Charles the Second, caused the stream of 
emigration again to flow ; but, on the accession of 
William and Mary, it was diverted in a great measure 
to the southern colonies ; and from that period to the 
war of independence, the gradual increase of the popu- 

* " The God of heaven," says the Rev. Cotton Mather, in the 
outset of his great work, Magnolia Christi Americana, " served, as 
it were, a summons upon the spirits of his people in the English 
nation, stirring up the spirits of thousands which never saw the 
faces of each other, with a most unanimous inclination to leave all 
the pleasant accommodations of their native country, and go over a 
terrible ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment 
of all his ordinances. 11 

C 



14 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

lation of New England was but little owing to immi- 
gration. In later times, that section of the American 
Union, whose inhabitants have thus been a compara- 
tively unmixed people, almost exclusively of Puritan 
origin, has held pretty much the same place in America 
as that of Scotland in the British Empire — sending forth 
numerous adventurers every year to the Southern States, 
as mercantile agents, store-keepers, mechanics, mer- 
chants, clerks, teachers of youth, and ministers of religion ; 
and throwing off annually large swarms of agricultural 
emigrants, who generally move off simultaneously in great 
numbers, with all their effects, to the Western States. 
This tendency to emigration arises, in great measure, from 
the comparative sterility of the soil, and the unpropi- 
tiousness of the climate of New England ; in conse- 
quence of which, a large proportion of the population 
is virtually forced, either into maritime pursuits and 
manufactures, or emigration. The regular stream of 
emigration began to set toward the west, and from 
the more populous States of New England — Connec- 
ticut, and Massachusetts — about the year 1790 ; and it 
gradually increased its volume, till, at one time, it had 
reached the enormous amount of 300,000 emigrants in 
a single year. This mighty stream spread itself, in the 
first instance, over the western portions of the State of 
New York, where it deposited about half a million of peo- 
ple of New England origin : it then successively overflow- 
ed the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and it is still 
flowing, although at a less rapid rate, towards the new 
State of Michigan, and the territories of Wisconsin and 
Iowa. The reader may judge, therefore, for himself, what 
probability there is that the great valley of the Mississippi 
is likely to become, at no distant period, a Roman Catho- 
lic province, as Captain Marryat sagely and lugubriously 
predicts. The whole Roman Catholic emigration to that 
valley, from all Europe, is but as a drop in the bucket, 
compared with the thoroughly Protestant emigration 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 15 

from New England ; and as the New Englanders uni- 
versally enjoy the blessings of religion and education 
in their native land, they are not likely to suffer their 
offspring to grow up without these advantages in the 
land of their adoption. In short, the very circumstance 
that by far the largest and best portion of the great 
stream of emigration that is flowing from the eastward 
to the valley of the Mississippi, has its source in New 
England — the land of the Pilgrim Fathers, the land which 
is unquestionably the best situated in America for the 
enjoyment of the blessings of religion and education, 
and the inculcation and practice of pure morality — is 
of itself sufficient to prove that the designs of Divine 
Providence, in regard to that great valley, are such as 
to cheer the spirits, and to animate the hopes of Pro- 
testants, rather than to excite apprehension or alarm. 

But the Puritans of New England were only a por- 
tion of the original European inhabitants of the Atlantic 
States of America ; and there is reason to believe that, 
as they never made much impression on the middle and 
southern States, they were much less concerned in 
forming the character of the great mass of the American 
people, than is generally supposed. Various other 
streams of population, of a kindred origin, doubtless, 
in regard to religion, but still of a different national 
origin, went to form the present comparatively homo- 
geneous community to the southward of New England. 

Of these, the first consisted of the Dutch colonists of 
Manhattan, or New York. ""'That colony was planted 
by the Hollanders in the year 1613, and was taken 
by the English in 1664 ; its population amounting at 
that time to 10,000, while that of all New England 
amounted only to 20,000. The Dutch were all strict 
Presbyterians, and their colonial church was modelled 
in entire conformity to the articles and order of the 
synod of Dort. The Dutch language was used exclu- 
sively in Divine service in the churches of that com- 



16 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

munion, even in the city of New York, till the year 
1764, exactly a hundred years from the conquest of 
the colony. In that year the Rev. Dr. Laidlie, a Pres- 
byterian clergyman from Scotland, was settled as one of 
the pastors of the Dutch church, and conducted divine 
service, thenceforward, in the English language. Dr. 
Laidlie's labours were eminently blessed, and a revival 
of religion speedily took place in the Dutch church, 
under his ministry. At the close of a social meeting 
for prayer, shortly after his arrival, one of his elders 
thus addressed him : — " Ah Dominie ! " (the usual de- 
signation of the Dutch clergy, when addressed by their 
people), " we offered many an earnest prayer in Dutch 
for your coming among us ; and, truly, the Lord has 
heard us in English, and sent you out to us."* Many 
of the descendants of the earlier Dutch colonists were 
soon mingled, by intermarriages, with the neighbouring 
colonists of New England ; of whom many had, at a com- 
paratively early period, settled within the limits of the 
province of New York. Many others have been dis- 
persed, either individually or in families, over the 
middle and southern States, and have fallen into the 
communion of the American Presbyterian church. But 
the great majority still retain their separate organiza- 
tion ; and although proverbially slow in their move- 
ments, and strongly opposed to innovation of every de- 
scription, they have uniformly been a highly virtuous 
and religious people.f At the close of the revolutionary 

* History of the Evangelical Churches of New York. New 
York, 1839. 

t As an instance of the amiable simplicity of the Dutch inhabit- 
ants of the State of New York, and their repugnance to any 
thing new, I have been told that, when winnowing-machines were 
first introduced into the district of Tappaan, near New York, about 
thirty years ago, the Dutch farmers would not allow them to be 
brought near their premises, on any account, as they believed they 
went by witchcraft. A wealthy Dutch farmer, of New York State, 
having contributed the whole cost of the building of a church in his 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMEKICA, I 7 

war, there were 90 churches of the Dutch reformed 
communion, chiefly in the States of New York and 
New Jersey. There are now upwards of 200, under 
the superintendence of the General Synod of the Dutch 
Reformed Church. 

During its separate existence, the Dutch colony had 
absorbed a small but interesting colony of Swedes and 
Finns, situated on the Delaware river, to the southward 
of New York. The Swedish colony had been planned 
and promoted by the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, 
and was founded in the year 1627. The first Swedish 
emigrants landed at Cape Hinlopen, at the mouth of 
the Delaware, and were so delighted with the appear- 
ance of the country, when compared with their own 
dreary land, that they called it Paradise Point. They 
purchased the land extending from that cape to the 
Falls of the Delaware, from the Indians of the country ; 
and, obtaining peaceful possession, built a fort on* the 
river, called Christiana, in honour of their queen. In 
revenge, however, for an aggression which, it seems, 
their governor had committed, without provocation, on 
one of the Dutch settlements in the neighbourhood, 
the latter, who disputed their title to the country alto- 
gether, destroyed their fort, and forwarded to Holland, 
and from thence to Gottenburg, all the Swedish colo- 
nists who refused to swear allegiance to the States- 
General. The Swedes who remained increased and 
multiplied, till they were gradually lost among the mass 
of the American people. The last rector of their 
churches, the late Rev. Dr. Collins, had seven or eight 
under his superintendence, in the neighbourhood of their 
original settlements in the States of Pennsylvania and 
Delaware ; most of which, I believe, have since passed 

neighbourhood, was advised (I presume by one of his New England 
neighbours) to attach a lightning- rod to it, He received the sug- 
gestion, however, with great displeasure, indignant at the idea that 
God would set fire to his oicn house. 

c 2 



18 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

into the communion of the American Episcopal 
Church.* 

The influx of French Huguenots into the Ame- 
rican colonies is an exceedingly interesting circum- 
stance in the history of the American people. It took 
place at a very early period in the history of these co- 
lonies ; and the immigration appears to have been long 
continued, and very extensive. During the wars of the 
League, the French Huguenots had seriously enter- 
tained the project of emigrating in a body to the pro- 
vince of Rio Janeiro, in the Brazils, under their cele- 
brated chief, the Admiral Coligni, who was afterwards 
massacred at Paris, along with so many of his unfortu- 
nate countrymen, on the eve of St. Bartholomew. This 
project, however, was, unfortunately for the world, 
never carried into effect ; but, from the period of the 
famous siege of Rochelle, till the revocation of the 
edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., in the year 1685, 
there had been a continual emigration of French Pro- 
testants to the English colonies of America, which, 
after that event, was greatly increased. It is calculated 
that, during the first ten years after the revocation of 
that celebrated edict, not fewer than seven hundred 
thousand of her best subjects were exiled from 
France ; of whom a much larger number than is com- 
monly supposed appear to have found their way to 
America. 

The Naturalization and other Acts of the old Colonial 
Legislatures of America afford satisfactory evidence of 
the fact of an early and extensive immigration of 
French Huguenots into the English colonies, which 
afterwards formed the United States. The first notice 
on the subject appears in the Acts of the Colony of 
Massachusetts Bay, under the year 1662. In that 
year, it is recorded that " Jean Touton, a French doctor, 

* Holmes' American Annals, passim* 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OP AMERICA. 19 

and inhabitant of Rochelle, made application to the 
General Court of Massachusetts, in behalf of himself 
and other Protestants expelled from their habitations 
on account of their religion, that they might have 
liberty to inhabit there ; which was readily granted to 
them."* And in the year 1686, eleven thousand acres 
of land were granted to another detachment of French 
Protestants who had settled at Oxford, in the same 
colony .f In that year, also, the Rev. Cotton Mather 
informs us a French Protestant church was erected in 
the city of Boston, of which, about ten years thereafter, 
the Rev. M. Daille was pastor. It is a singular fact 
in the history of this church, that upwards of a century 
after this period, when the descendants of the French 
Protestants had become indistinguishably blended with 
the American people, and had long ceased to speak 
the language of their forefathers, or to occupy their 
church for public worship, it fell into the hands of a 
small congregation of French Roman Catholic refugees, 
who had sought an asylum in Boston when driven from 
France or St. Domingo. It is situated in School- 
street, Boston. 

An act for the naturalization of French Protestants, 
evidently marking the period when a Huguenot emi- 
gration took place to that colony, was passed by the 
legislature of Maryland in the year 1666 ; a similar 
act was passed in Virginia in the year 1671, and an- 
other of the same import in Carolina, which then in- 
cluded the two States of that name, in 16 96. The 
naturalization act in favour of French Protestants was not 
passed in the colony of New York till the year 1 703. 

Of the Huguenots who emigrated to the colony, 
the wealthier portion settled as merchants in the city 
of New York; others obtained land to cultivate 

* Holmes' American Annals, sab anno. + Ibid. 



20 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

in the neighbourhood, and founded the town of New 
Rochelle, situated about twenty miles from the city, to 
the north-eastward, on Long Island Sound ; while 
others again settled also as farmers at New Palz, in 
Ulster County, on Hudson's River. The church found- 
ed by the Huguenots in New York was a collegiate 
church, of which the Rev. Messrs. Roux and Mouli- 
naars were the joint pastors in the beginning of the 
last century ; and Smith, the historian of New York, 
informs us that in the year 1708 the Huguenots were, 
next to the Dutch, the most numerous and the wealth- 
iest class of the population. 

On the testimony of an old Huguenot lady of New 
Rochelle, the Rev. Dr. Miller, an American clergyman, 
relates, " that when the Huguenots first settled in that 
neighbourhood, the only place of worship they had to 
attend was in New York city. They had taken lands 
on terms which required the utmost exertions of men, 
women, and children among them to clear and render 
tillable. They were therefore in the habit of working 
hard till Saturday night, spending the night in trudging 
down on foot to the city, attending worship twice the 
next day, and walking home the same night, to be 
ready for work in the morning. Amidst all these 
hardships, they wrote to France, what great privileges 
they enjoyed!"* 

In the year 1679, Charles II. ordered two ships to 
be provided at his own expense, to convey foreign Pro- 
testants (Huguenots) to Carolina, where they proposed 
to cultivate the vine, the olive, and the other produc- 
tions of the south of Europe : and from this period 
till the Revolution an extensive emigration of French 
Protestants took place to all the American colonies. 
Large collections were made for them in England even 

* Hist, of Evans, Churches of N. York. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 21 

during the reign of James II., and a grant of £15,000 
was at one time distributed among them by order of 
Parliament.* 

In the year 1690, King William III. sent a large body 
of French refugees to the colony of Virginia, giving 
them a free passage at the expense of government. 
Others purchased land, and settled in Carolina, for the 
cultivation of the vine. In the year 1699, about three 
hundred families of French refugees arrived in Virginia, 
and were afterwards followed by two hundred others, 
and subsequently by a hundred more. So late as the 
year 1752, not fewer than sixteen hundred foreign 
Protestants, chiefly French, settled in South Carolina, 
and upwards of two hundred more, exclusively French, 
in 1764. In short, the British government appears for 
a long period to have systematically encouraged the 
settlement of French and other foreign Protestants in 
the American colonies ; for, besides the instances al- 
ready mentioned, we are informed that in the year 
1733, three hundred and seventy Swiss Protestant fa- 
milies settled in South Carolina, to the northward of 
the Savannah River, who had been conducted to Ame- 
rica by Jean Pierre Pury, of Neufchatel ; the British 
government allotting them 40,000 acres of land, and 
contributing £400 sterling for every hundred adult 
Swiss emigrants landed in the colony.-)- 

Enactments were also passed by the various colonial 
legislatures, granting the French Protestants liberty of 
worship, and relieving them from the burden of contri- 
buting towards the support of the old colonial episcopal 
establishments. Thus, in the year 1700, 12th William 
III., it was enacted as follows by the legislature of 
Virginia : " Whereas a considerable number of French 
Protestant refugees have been lately imported into this 
His Majesty's colony and dominion, several of which 

* Holmes' Annals, passim* f Ibid. 



22 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

refugees have seated themselves above the falls of 
James' River, at or near to a place commonly called and 
known by the name of the Manakin town, &c, the said 
settlement to be erected into a parish, not liable to 
other parochial assessments."* 

In some of these settlements, the French language 
continued to be spoken till a comparatively recent 
period. M. du Ponceau, of Philadelphia, President of 
the American Philosophical Society, himself a Hugue- 
not by descent, and one of the most eminent linguists 
now living, informed me that, in the year 1782, (for 
M. du P. is now considerably upwards of eighty years 
of age,) being stationed for some time with a troop of 
American horse, during the war of independence, at 
the town of New Rochelle, he found the French lan- 
guage still generally spoken by the people, and always 
used in their public worship. Now, however, there is 
no trace of the French language in that settlement. 
In like manner, in the city of Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, the French Protestant church has an endowment 
of about two thousand dollars per annum, for the sup- 
port of a minister, of the French Reformed communion, 
to dispense the ordinances of religion in that language. 
The church property is held by thirty-six families of 
Huguenot origin in the city ; but as the use of the 
French language has been long discontinued in Charles- 
ton, the endowment is now in abeyance, and the church 
shut up. The last minister who statedly preached in 
it was an American Presbyterian clergyman of the 
name of Frazer, who has since been endeavouring to 
establish his title to the ancient Scotch barony of 
Lovat, attainted in the year 1745. 

In short, as the whole population of the American 
colonies in the year 1701, that is, forty years after the 
Huguenot emigration to these colonies had commenced, 

* Hemmings , Collection of the Laws of Virginia. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 23 

did not exceed 260,000 souls altogether,* it is evident 
that a large portion of that population must have been 
of Huguenot origin, and that Huguenot blood must 
be extensively diffused among the American people 
of the present day. Many of the first families of 
New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, 
trace their origin to this honourable source, of which, 
indeed, their names still exhibit satisfactory evidence. 
In many cases, however, as in the central parts of Penn- 
sylvania, where there was a numerous French Protes- 
tant settlement, this evidence no longer remains ; the 
American descendants of the Huguenots having been 
obliged to vary the spelling of their names, and to give 
them an English aspect, to prevent their being per- 
petually mangled by American pronunciation. And 
in proof of the fact that these descendants of an illus- 
trious stock have not degenerated in later times, but 
are still mindful of those principles of civil and religious 
liberty which their forefathers so ardently cherished, and 
for which they preferred " suffering affliction with the 
people of God," to all the riches and the pleasures of 
France, it is worthy of remark, that of the seven Pre- 
sidents of the Congress of the United States of Ameri- 
ca, during the war of independence, not fewer than 
three were of French Huguenot descent. I am indebt- 
ed for this information to M. du Ponceau ; the names 
of the three Presidents referred to were John Jaye, 
Elias Boudinot, and Henry Laurens. 

The French Protestants never formed a separate ec- 
clesiastical organization in America, like the Dutch in 
New York, and the Germans in Pennsylvania. In a 
few localities, in which the Episcopal Church was esta- 
blished and predominant, as in the cities of New York 
and Charleston, their descendants, on coming to use 
the English language, passed over into that communion, 

* Holmes' Annals. 



24 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

to which, indeed, they had many inducements previous 
to the Revolution ; but in all other cases, they gra- 
dually fell into the communion of the American Pres- 
byterian Church. In the roll of communicants in the 
Presbyterian churches in Charleston, I observed the fol- 
lowing Huguenot names : — Dupre, Du Bosc, Quillin, 
Lanneau, Legare, Rosamond, Dana, Cousar, Lequeux, 
Boies, Hammet, Rechon, Bize, Benoist, Berbant, Ru- 
berry, Vardell, Marchant, Keckeley, Mallard, Chapin, 
Belville, Molyneux, Fabrigue, Lagow, Chevalier, Bayard, 
Sayre, De Saint Croix, Boudinot, Le Roy, Bonnell, 
Ogier, Janvier, Gillet, Purviance, Guiteau, Boyer, Car- 
rell, Simon, &c. 

About the middle of the seventeenth century, and 
probably before the Dutch colony of New York had 
fallen into the hands of the English — for I have only 
learned the circumstance from the Dutch traditions of 
the neighbourhood, and have never met with any ac- 
count of it in the English histories of the American 
colonies — there was an emigration of about two hundred 
Protestants from the kingdom of Poland to the territory 
of New Jersey. It was headed by a Polish nobleman, 
of the illustrious and royal house of Sobieski, a lineal 
descendant of the celebrated Pole of that name, who, 
with a mere handful of troops, in the depth of winter, 
attacked and routed a Turkish army of sixty thousand 
men, under the walls of Vienna ; thereby compelling the 
Turks to raise the siege of that important city, and ar- 
resting their victorious march into the heart of Christen- 
dom. The Reformation, it is well known, had, at an 
earlyperiod, made considerable progress in Poland ; and, 
like Henry the Fourth of France, John Casimir, king 
of Poland, had granted great immunities to his Protes- 
tant subjects, by a royal charter, like the edict of 
Nantes ; which, however, certain of his less liberal suc- 
cessors, at the instance of the Romish princes and pre- 
lates refused to carry into effect. It was during the 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 25 

troubles and persecutions arising from this source, that 
Count Sobieski, and certain of his Protestant retainers, 
emigrated in a body to America ; where his descendants 
are still numerous and respectable, in the state of New- 
Jersey, although their name has shared the fate of so 
many other continental names in that country, in being 
corrupted into Zabrisky. It may not be irrelevant to 
remark, especially as the fact is not generally known, 
that the troubles of Poland for a century past, the dis- 
memberment of that unfortunate kingdom, and its hav- 
ing ultimately become a mere province of Russia, are 
all distinctly traceable to the obstinate refusal of the 
Popish party in Poland to give effect to the charter of 
John Casimir, granting liberty of conscience to his Pro- 
testant subjects. It may also be regarded as a further 
instance of the retributive justice of Divine Providence, 
that the emperor Nicholas should now be compelling 
those very Poles, whose forefathers so long refused li- 
berty of worship to their Protestant brethren, to re- 
nounce the Romish and to enter the Greek Church. 

The troubles of the Palatinate, towards the close of 
the seventeenth century, were also productive of a nu- 
merous emigration from that part of Germany to the 
American colonies, chiefly during the reign of Queen 
Anne. About 2700 Palatines, as they were then called, 
were sent out by the British Government to New York, 
along with Colonel Hunter, the Governor of that colony, 
in the year 1710 ; while many others, who had been 
sent in the same way to Virginia, settled above the falls 
of the river Rappahannock, on what was then the Indian 
frontier of the colony. When the Whig ministry of 
Queen Anne, by whom these measures had been pro- 
moted, were superseded by a Tory administration, one 
of the charges which was brought against them by their 
successors, was that of " squandering away great sums 
upon the Palatines, who were a useless people, a mix- 
ture of all religions, and dangerous to the constitution ;" 

D 



26 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

and it was actually resolved, by a vote of the Imperial 
Legislature, " That those who advised the bringing them 
over were enemies to the queen and kingdom." It is 
somewhat instructive to observe how very differently 
the emigration of these peaceful and industrious Ger- 
mans was regarded in the colonies ; for so advan- 
tageous was their settlement on the frontier considered 
by the General Assembly of Virginia, that an act passed 
the legislature of that colony, in the year 1712, exempt- 
ing them from all levies or assessments for the period 
of seven years.* From this period there was a regular 
influx of Germans into the American colonies, which 
continued with little interruption till the war of indepen- 
dence, and which has since been increasing rapidly till 
the present day. One half of the whole population of 
Pennsylvania is of German origin ; and as a proof of 
their influence in the Commonwealth, I was informed, 
that for twenty years before the accession of the last Go- 
vernor, the Germans had uniformly elected one of their 
own countrymen as Governor of the State. Nearly a 
similar proportion of the population of Ohio, and a large 
amount of that of Maryland, are also of German origin. 
The German Protestants, who constitute the great ma- 
jority of the whole German population of the United 
States, are divided into Lutherans and Calvinists, or 
Reformed ; each of which denominations is under the 
superintendence of a General Synod — the Lutherans 
having a thousand congregations, and the German Re- 
formed about half that number. 

The origin of the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania is 
well known. It was founded at the instance and through 
the exertions of the benevolent individual whose name 
it bears ; chiefly, I believe, in consequence of the perse- 
cutions to which the members of the Society of Friends 
had long been subjected, not only in the mother coun- 

* Holmes 1 Annals, passim. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 27 

try, but even in the other American colonies. For, 
incredible as it may seem, it is nevertheless the fact, 
that in the year 1656, twelve Quakers* were banished 
from the colony of Massachusetts, by order of the Ge- 
neral Court of that colony, for no other crime than their 
inoffensive opinions ; and two of their number who had 
returned to it some time thereafter, were actually exe- 
cuted in the year 1659 I In that year, also, an act was 
passed by the legislature of Virginia, by which it was 
enacted, that " any commander of any shipp or vessell 
bringing into the collonie any person or persons called 
Quakers, is to be fined £100. ; and all Quakers appre- 
hended in the collonie, are to be imprisoned till they 
abjure this countrie, or give securitie to depart from it 
forthwith. If they return a third time, they are to be 
punished as felons."* 

Quakers are, of course, still numerous in the state of 
Pennsylvania, although it is long since they ceased to 
be a majority of the population. They are unequally 
divided into orthodox and Hicksites, or Unitarians ; 
each of which denominations has two separate meeting- 
houses in the city of Philadelphia. That city is built 
on an oblong piece of level ground, lying between 
the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, which, in that neigh- 
bourhood, pursue a parallel course for some distance, 
about two miles apart. The streets that run perpendi- 
cularly to the course of the rivers are named from the 
trees of the country — Chestnut, Walnut, Mulberry, 
Filbert, Cherry, Pine, &c. &c. — while those that run 
parallel to their course are regularly numbered from the 
Delaware, Front-street, Second-street, Third-street, up to 
Thirteenth-street. It is an admirable device for a 
stranger, who thus gets familiar with the geography of 
the place at a glance, and it affords a good practical 
commentary on the Quaker doctrine of utility. 

* Hemmings' Collection of the Laws of Virginia. 



28 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

It is unnecessary to say a single word about the 
morality of the Quakers, as an influential portion of 
the American people ; and in regard to the Germans 
in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland, they are the 
same plodding, industrious, and virtuous people that 
we uniformly find their countrymen, especially those of 
the Lutheran and Reformed communions, in Europe. 

But the largest portion of that stream of population 
that had been flowing for a century and upwards, pre- 
vious to the war of independence, to those colonies 
that now constitute the middle and southern States of 
the American republic, was unquestionably derived 
from the British isles. And it is worthy of remark, 
that although it continued to flow long after the return 
of peace and rest to the British churches, it originated 
exclusively in persecution for conscience' sake. Of the 
two thousand Presbyterian ministers who were driven 
from the communion of the Church of England by the 
famous Act of Uniformity, in the reign of Charles the 
Second, we are informed by contemporary historians, 
that not a few found an asylum in the American colo- 
nies ; and many of their people also followed their 
example. During the Commonwealth, the Presbyterian 
system of church government had found many zealous 
adherents, both among the clergy and people, in the 
principality of Wales ; and when the times of oppres- 
sion and persecution succeeded to that period of calm, 
emigration to America was extensively resorted to by 
both ministers and people. Towards the close of the 
seventeenth century, the Welsh emigrants in Pennsyl- 
vania were so numerous as to occupy six townships on 
the Schuylkill river, in that State ;* and in the lists of 
the earlier ministers of the Presbyterian church in 
America, such names as Evans, Davies, Griffiths, Mor- 



* History of the Presb. Church in America, by Prof. Hodge, of 
Princeton, New Jersey, vol. i., p. 51. Philadelphia, 1840. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 29 

gan, and Jones, evidently of Welsh origin, frequently 
occur. 

But it was principally from Scotland and the north 
of Ireland that the great stream of British emigration 
to the middle States of America was supplied, from 
the accession of Charles the Second till the American 
Revolution. There seems even to have been for some 
time a fixed purpose, on the part of the wretched 
government to which the Almighty had at the com- 
mencement of that period subjected the British isles, 
to force the Presbyterians of Scotland and the north 
of Ireland to emigrate to America, probably because it 
was at length found impracticable to get rid of them 
entirely by more violent measures, or because the 
royal stomach was gorged sufficiently with blood. " It 
is judged the interest of the government," observes 
Scot, of Pitlochie, a Scotchman of rank and influence 
at this period, " to suppress Presbyterian principles al- 
together ; the whole force of the law of this kingdom 
is levelled at the effectual bearing them down. The 
rigorous putting these laws in execution has, in a great 
part, ruined many of those who, notwithstanding hereof, 
find themselves in conscience obliged to retain their 
principles. A retreat, where by law a toleration is 
allowed, doth at present offer itself in America, and is 
nowhere else to be found in His Majesty's dominions." 
" This is the era," observes Bancroft, in his History of 
the United States, " at which New Jersey, till now 
chiefly colonized from New England, became the asy- 
lum of Scottish Presbyterians. And is it strange," 
asks that writer, " that many Scottish Presbyterians of 
virtue, education, and courage, blending a love of po- 
pular liberty with religious enthusiasm, came to New 
Jersey in such numbers, as to give to the rising com- 
monwealth a character which a century and a half has 
not effaced ?" " The more wealthy of the Scotch emi- 
grants of that period," observes another writer, " were 

d 2 



30 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OP 

noted for bringing with them a great number of ser- 
vants, and, in some instances, for transporting whole 
families of poor labourers, whom they established on 
their lands."* And in speaking of the town of Free- 
hold, one of the earlier settlements in New Jersey, the 
Rev. W. Tennent observes : " The settling of that place 
with a gospel ministry was owing, under God, to the 
agency of some Scotch people that came to it ; among 
whom there was none so painstaking in this blessed 
work as one Walter Ker, who, in 1685, for his faithful 
and conscientious adherence to God and his truth, as 
professed by the Church of Scotland, was there appre- 
hended and sent to this country, under a sentence of 
perpetual banishment. By which it appears, that the 
devil and his instruments lost their aim in sending him 
from home, where it is unlikely he could ever have 
been so serviceable to Christ's kingdom as he has been 
here. He is yet (1744) alive ; and, blessed be God, 
flourishing in his old age, being in his 88th year."-}- 

About the same period, a company of thirty noble- 
men and gentlemen, headed by Lord Cardross, of Scot- 
land, contracted for a large tract of land in Carolina, 
as an asylum for their persecuted countrymen ; and a 
Scotch settlement was accordingly formed on Port 
Royal Island, in that colony, in the year 1682.J 

According to Dr. Hodge, " A considerable number 
of Scotch also settled in Maryland. Colonel Ninian 
Beall, a native of Fifeshire, having become implicated 
in the troubles arising out of the conflict with episco- 
pacy, fled first to Barbadoes, and thence removed to 
Maryland, where he made an extensive purchase of 
land, covering much of the present site of Washington 
and Georgetown. He sent home to urge his friends 

* Bancroft and Gordon, quoted by Prof. Hodge in his Hist, of 
the Presb. Ch. in America, vol. i. 

f Rev. W. Tennent, quoted by Prof. Hodge, Hist. &c. ii., p. 24. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 31 

and neighbours to join him in his exile, and had influ- 
ence enough to induce about two hundred to come 
over. They arrived about 1690, bringing with them 
their pastor, the Rev. Nathaniel Taylor, and formed the 
church and congregation of Upper Marlborough."* 

Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia during 
the greater part of the reign of Charles the Second, 
states, in a paper containing replies to certain inquiries 
proposed to him by the Lords of Plantations, that the 
number of emigrants who arrived annually in Virginia 
during that period was fifteen hundred ; and that of 
these a portion were Scotch and Jrish.f As the emi- 
gration of Roman Catholics from Ireland to America 
did not commence till some time after the war of 
American Independence, it is to be presumed that 
these Irish were exclusively Presbyterians, and chiefly 
from the province of Ulster. This, indeed, is rendered 
almost certain from the fact, that a Presbyterian minis- 
ter, the Rev. Francis Makemie, was ordained, in all 
likelihood at their request, by the Presbytery of 
Donegal, in the north of Ireland, to dispense the ordi- 
nances of religion in that colony, and was actually 
settled in Accomack county, in Virginia, previous to 
the year 1690. Mr. Makemie was thus the father of 
the Presbyterian Church (as distinct from the churches 
of New England) in America; and his memory was 
long revered in that country as a man of piety, and 
learning, and apostolic zeal. In the year 1704 he 
returned to Ireland, to procure additional ministers for 
the wide field of labour which the American colonies 
then presented to the Presbyterian Church, and carried 
out with him, on his return to Virginia, other tw r o mi- 
nisters, who were immediately settled in the adjoining 
colony of Maryland. In the year 1707, Mr. Makemie 
went to visit his countrymen in New York ; and during 

* Prof. Hodge, Hist, of Presb. Ck. in Amer., vol. i., p. 66. 
f Hemmings 1 Collection of the Laws of Virginia. Appendix. 



32 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

his stay in that colony he was imprisoned, and brought 
to trial by Lord Cornbury, the Governor, as a disturber 
of the public peace and a mover of sedition, for the 
serious offence of preaching the gospel ! His defence, 
which he conducted himself in a masterly manner, 
was long and deservedly famous among the Presby- 
terians of America.* 

It was some time after the commencement of the 
last century that the Scotch and Irish began to emi- 
grate in considerable numbers to the colony of New 
York. The intolerance of the public authorities, or 
rather of the Episcopal Church, in that colony, of which 
I have just given a striking example, appears to have 
deterred them. In the year 1708, "the inhabitants of 
the city were Dutch Calvinists, upon the plan of the 
Church of Holland ; French Refugees, on the Geneva 
model ; a few English Episcopalians ; and a still 
smaller number of English and Irish Presbyterians."f 
In the year 1717, however, the Scotch Presbyterians 
were numerous enough to have a church and pastor of 
their own in New York, and the Scotch and Irish emi- 
gration to the interior of the colony was then rapidly 
increasing. In the year 1787, Captain Lachlan Camp- 
bell, a Scotch Highlander, carried out to New York, at 
his own expense, upwards of five hundred of his poorer 
countrymen ; and the influx of Scotch and Irish emi- 
grants till the commencement of the Revolution was 
thenceforward regular and progressive. So early, even, 
as the year 1736, a settlement of Scotch Highlanders 
was formed in the colony of Georgia, then recently 
planted, under the pastoral superintendence of the 
Rev. Mr. M'Leod, a Gaelic minister from the island of 
Skye + 

* Prof. Hodge, Hist, of Presb. Ch. in Amer., passim. Rev. Dr. 
Reid, Hist, of Presb. Church in Ireland, vol. ii. 

f Smith, Hist, of New York, quoted by Prof. Hodge, 
.t Holmes* Annals. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 33 

" It was, however, to Pennsylvania that the largest 
emigrations of the Scotch and Irish, particularly of the, 
latter, though at a somewhat later period, took place. 
Early in the last century, they began to arrive in large 
numbers. Near six thousand Irish are reported as 
having come out in 1729; and before the middle of 
the century, near twelve thousand arrived annually, 
for several years. Speaking of a later period, Proud 
says, ' they have flowed in, of late years, from 
the north of Ireland, in very large numbers.' Cum- 
berland county, he says, is settled by them ; and they 
abound through the whole province. From Penn- 
sylvania, they spread themselves into Virginia, and 
thence into North Carolina. A thousand families 
arrived in that State, from the northern colonies, in 
the single year 1764. Their descendants occupy the 
western portion of the State, with a dense and homo- 
geneous population, distinguished by the strict morals 
and rigid principles of their ancestors. In 1749, five 
or six hundred Scotch settled near Fayetteville ; there 
was a second importation in 1754 ; and there was an 
annual importation, from that time, of that hardy and 
industrious people."* 

Fayetteville is situated at the head of the navigation of 
Cape Fear river, in the State of North Carolina ; and 
the Scotch who are said to have settled there, about 
the middle of last century, were exclusively from the 
Highlands of Scotland. The Gaelic language is still 
spoken in this vicinity ; and in some of the Presbyterian 
churches of this part of North Carolina, it is used in 
divine service. Public worship is conducted, in every 
respect, as in Scotland ; and on extraordinary occa- 
sions, as at the solemn and protracted services that 
accompany the celebration of the Lord's Supper, in the 
Presbyterian Church, congregations of from two to three 

* Prof. Hodge, Hist, of Presb. Ch., &c., vol, i., p. 66. 



34 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

thousand persons are frequently assembled, as is still the 
case, on such occasions, in some parts of Scotland. 
The Presbytery of Londonderry, in New Hampshire, in 
which, in like manner, the manners and observances of 
the Presbyterians of Ireland are still retained and che- 
rished, owes its origin to the settlement of a hundred 
families, from the province of Ulster, in that neighbour- 
hood, in the year 1719. 

The land along the Atlantic coast of America, for 
upwards of a hundred miles from the ocean, especially 
to the southward of the Chesapeake Bay, is generally 
low and sterile, and was, probably, at no remote period, 
under water. The rivers that empty themselves into 
the Atlantic Ocean generally cease to be navigable at 
that distance from the coast, and the falls that are there 
found to impede navigation indicate both the rise and 
the improvement of the country. It is on this rising 
country, of which the climate is highly salubrious and 
the soil sufficiently productive, that the Scotch settle- 
ments of North Carolina are principally located. Beyond 
the first range of mountains, however, which, running 
parallel to the coast, stretches across the whole extent 
of Virginia, and is called the Blue Ridge, and the Alle- 
ghany mountains to the westward, there is a valley of 
several hundred miles in length, and of various breadth, 
called, by way of distinction, the Valley of Virginia, or 
simply The Valley, and embracing a country of great 
natural beauty and unbounded fertility. Into this 
valley the Scotch-Irish, as they are called in America, 
that is, the Irish Presbyterian descendants of the ori- 
ginal Scotch colonists of the province of Ulster, found 
their way from the State of Pennsylvania, where the 
two mountain ridges form a narrow defile, some time 
about the close of the seventeenth, or the beginning of 
the eighteenth, century. And in succeeding genera- 
tions, reinforced, as they were, from year to year, by 
perpetual immigration, they gradually spread them- 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 35 

selves over the whole valley, and in process of time 
pushed onward into the western parts of North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, and Georgia, where the country is 
of a somewhat similar character, and sent numerous de- 
tachments into the vast region which now constitutes 
the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. In still later 
periods, numerous families and individuals from these 
older colonies, and especially from the sterile regions 
on the coast, joined the great stream of emigration to 
the westward, ultimately fixing their residence in the 
States of Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, and 
Arkansas. For it is worthy of remark, that emigration 
within the United States generally proceeds upon the 
same parallel of latitude : for, as the land of promise in 
that country is the West, the emigrant, naturally pre- 
ferring the climate to which he has been accustomed, 
turns neither to the right hand nor to the left, in his 
western course, but pushes right onwards towards the 
setting sun. 

In short, if it was the comparatively small number of 
English Puritans, that settled in the northern colonies 
during the seventeenth century, that gave the tone and 
character to the present population of New England, it 
has unquestionably been the Scotch-Irish, who had thus 
been pouring in their thousands, every year, into the 
Middle States of the Union, for a whole century before 
the war of independence, that have given the tone 
and character to these Middle States, which now con- 
stitute so large and so important a portion of the Ameri- 
can Republic, and from which the South and West are 
now rapidly colonizing. 

From the preceding rapid and imperfect sketch of 
the origin of the inhabitants of the Atlantic States of 
America, it will doubtless be evident to the reader 
that, for the space of a century and upwards, before the 
war of American independence, Divine Providence 
had, in a most remarkable manner, been collecting to- 



33 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

gether, from all parts of Europe, in the English colonies 
that now constitute the United States of America, just 
such materials as were, unquestionably, the best fitted 
for laying the foundations of a great and Christian empire, 
and for thereby exerting, in all time coming, a highly 
beneficial influence in the advancement of the human 
race. Formed, in regard to their national origin, of the 
most heterogeneous and apparently discordant materials, 
but united, nevertheless, by the strong tie of a common 
faith, for which they had all suffered the loss of all 
things, it was natural to expect that, as soon as the 
American people should assume the standing and cha- 
racter of a separate nation, governed by its own laws, 
and forming its own institutions, pure and undeflled re- 
ligion would be found to nourish among them, on the 
one hand, and that they would be remarkably distin- 
guished for an ardent and enthusiastic attachment to 
civil and religious liberty, on the other. And, to use 
the apposite metaphor of M. de Tocqueville, the Ame- 
rican man has fully realized the promise of his infancy 
and childhood ; exhibiting those peculiarly sterling qua- 
lities that were to have been anticipated from the cir- 
cumstances of his birth. So early as the year 1634, 
George Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore, the 
original patentee of the colony of Maryland, settled in 
that colony with two hundred Roman Catholics from 
Ireland ; for whom, indeed, the colony of Maryland was 
originally intended as an asylum.* Now, had this 
Roman Catholic emigration, which was very consider- 
able in the first instance, and promised to be equally 
extensive with the Protestant, not been checked by va- 
rious circumstances, at the outset, and kept back for 
the long period of a hundred and fifty years, or till the 
country had been sufficiently leavened with Protestant- 
ism to enable it to neutralize all the subsequent efforts 

* Holmes' Annals. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 37 

and influence of Popery ; in short, had the emigration 
of Irish Roman Catholics to America been as extensive 
in the seventeenth, as it has been in the nineteenth 
century, the United States would at this moment have 
been a mere province of the Papacy ; while its free- 
born, intelligent, and thoroughly Protestant people 
would in all likelihood have been, like their neighbours 
in Mexico and South America, the deluded victims of 
a debasing superstition. It would be blindness, indeed, 
not to discern the hand of God in so beneficent an ar- 
rangement! 

"This review," observes Professor Hodge, after enu- 
merating the different classes of immigrants into the 
United States, " accounts for the rapid increase of the 
Presbyterian church in this country. In about a century 
and a quarter, it has risen from two or three ministers to 
between two and three thousand. This is no matter of 
surprise, when it is seen that so large a portion of the 
emigrants were Presbyterians. As they merged their 
diversities of national character into that of American 
citizens, so the Scotch, Irish, French, English, Dutch, and 
German Presbyterians became united, in thousands of 
instances, in the American Presbyterian church, Having 
the same views of civil government, our population, so 
diversified as to its origin, forms a harmonious civil 
society, and, agreeing in opinion on the government of 
the church, the various classes above specified formed a 
religious society, in which the difference of their origin 
was as little regarded as it was in the state.'* 

" The history of American colonization," observes an 
able and eloquent writer, " is the history of the crimes 
of Europe." Of the multitudes of emigrants that 
crossed over into the New World, from the Old, during 
the seventeenth, and the earlier portion of the eighteenth 
centuries, how few, comparatively, had not been driven 
from their native land by the scourge of oppression ! 
South America was originally colonized for its silver 

E 



38 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 






and its gold ; and the present inferior and degraded 
race that occupies its vast extent, in comparative po- 
verty and indolence, are the worthy descendants of the 
bands of lawless and blood-thirsty ruffians that first 
landed, in search of these precious metals, on its 
shores ; but North America was colonized, in great 
measure at least, by honest and Christian men — men 
who were searching, in the vast wilderness, for that 
civil and religious liberty which they prized above all 
other earthly possessions, and which had been so un- 
justly and so cruelly denied them at home. " It is the 
peculiar characteristic of America," observes Dr. Hodge, 
" that it is the asylum of all nations. The blood of 
the Huguenots, of the Puritans, of the Dutch, of the 
Germans, of the Scotch, and of the Irish, here flows in 
one common stream."* 

And yet, if we are to believe Captain Marryat, in 
direct opposition to the evidence afforded by ten thou- 
sand indisputable facts, and to all the deductions of 
common sense and experience, we must believe that 
this blood has now become so thoroughly tainted, that 
there is no portion of the putrid mass of society in the 
worst parts of the European world to be compared with 
the American people for corruption and immorality! 
" I consider," says this writer of novels, " that, at this 
present time, the standard of morality is lower in Ame- 
rica than in any other portion of the civilized globe." 
" It may, indeed, be fairly said, that nothing is disgrace- 
ful with the majority in America, which the law cannot 
lay hold of. You are either in or out of the Peniten- 
tiary ; if once in, you are lost for ever ; but keep out, 
and you are as good as your neighbours." And again, 
" Fifty years back, at the time of the Declaration of 
Independence, was not the American community one 
of the most virtuous in existence ? It is equally 

* Hist, of Presb. Church in America, vol, i. p. 71. Philadelphia, 
1840. 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 39 

certain that they are now one of the most demo- 
ralized.'** 

I have no hesitation, from what I saw myself, in hun- 
dreds of localities, in not fewer than eleven States of the 
Union, in characterising these statements as an utterly un- 
founded and atrocious libel. I cannot even give Captain 
Marryat, in this particular instance, as I am willing to 
do in others, the credit of ignorance and presumption. 
He could not be ignorant that such statements were 
grossly untrue, and utterly unfounded. In short, with 
such exceptions as are to be met with in all countries, 
and in tenfold greater numbers in England than in 
America, the inhabitants of all the older States of the 
American Union are a pre-eminently moral and religious 
people. And why should it be otherwise ? Is it cre- 
dible that men who had, in so many instances, willingly 
suffered exile for conscience' sake, would fail to instil 
virtuous principles into the hearts of their children ? 
Or is it at all accordant w r ith uniform experience in 
other instances, that these children would so speedily 
prove so utterly unmindful, as Captain M.'s slanderous 
representation implies, of the precepts and example of 
their fathers ? The comparatively pure morality even 
of the Unitarians of New England, which, like the sun- 
light in the arctic regions, still continues to illumine the 
land of darkness and of the shadow of death, after the 
glorious luminary from which it had emanated has dis- 
appeared from the firmament of heaven, proves suffi- 
ciently how deeply seated were the Christian principles 
of their pilgrim fathers, and how zealously they taught 
even their erring children the pure morality of the gospel. 

Besides, is it credible that the comfortable circum- 
stances in which the great mass of the American peo- 
ple are placed, in regard to the means of subsistence — 
alike removed from poverty on the one hand, and from 
affluence on the other — should be unfavourable to mo- 
* Diary in America, vol. i. Amer. edit. 220. 



40 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

rality ? On the contrary, is it not universally allowed, 
that very much of the immorality of England arises, 
from the very different constitution of society in our 
own country — from degrading penury at the one ex- 
treme of the social system, and from the ability to in- 
dulge in wasteful extravagance and dissipation at the 
other? The working man in America is in general of 
much superior standing in society to the working man 
of the same occupation in England. In all likelihood 
the American workman is an intelligent man, and has got 
a good common education, and expects eventually to rise 
to a higher level in society than the one he occupies. 
He is, in all likelihood, married, and has a rising family, 
for whom he finds no difficulty in securing as good an 
education as he has had himself ; and the probability is, 
that he is a member, and perhaps an office-bearer, of 
some Presbyterian, Methodist, or Baptist church in his 
neighbourhood : for it is not creditable even for a com- 
mon workman in America not to be connected with some 
Christian church. Compare such a situation, and its 
eminent advantages for morality and religion, with that 
of the English workman — " the lean, unwashed artificer" 
of our cities — and then say whether the representation 
of Captain Marryat has even the semblance of proba- 
bility ! How few comparatively of our own workmen 
are married men ! Alas ! their scanty wages, and their 
precarious prospect of employment, too frequently de- 
ter them from burdening themselves with the cares of 
a family ; and how many, comparatively, of these un- 
married men, especially in our large cities, lead exceed- 
ingly irregular and vicious lives ! The common work- 
man in England very rarely expects to better his fortune, 
or to rise to the rank of a master. Hope is annihilated 
within him from the very first, and the powerful stimu- 
lus to virtuous action which it uniformly supplies is never 
felt. How few T , comparatively, also, of our workmen 
are members of any church ! How large a proportion 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 4i 

of their whole number are Socialists and Chartists — 
cherishing a deep-rooted feeling of hatred towards the 
higher classes of society, whom they almost uniformly 
regard as their oppressors, and a growing disposition to 
throw off all authority, whether human or divine ! 
These undoubted characteristics of a large proportion 
of the working classes in England, have nothing what- 
ever to compare with them in America. 

After complacently taking for granted the unparal- 
leled and atrocious immorality of the Americans, with- 
out adducing, however, the slightest evidence of the 
fact, Captain Marryat ascribes the prevalence of this 
immorality to the want of an aristocracy. " It is the 
want of this aristocracy that has so lowered the standard 
of morals in America, and it is the reviving of it that 
must restore to the people of the United States the 
morality they have lost." And again, " The fact is, 
that an aristocracy is absolutely necessary for America, 
both politically and morally, if the Americans wish 
their institutions to hold together ; for if some stop is 
not put to the rapidly advancing power of the people, 
anarchy must be the result. I do not mean an aristo- 
cracy of title ; I mean such an aristocracy of talent 
and power as wealth will give — an aristocracy which 
shall lead society and purify it. How is this to be ob- 
tained in a democracy ? Simply by purchase. In a 
country where the suffrage is confined to certain classes, 
as in England, such purchase is not to be obtained, as 
the people who have the right of suffrage are not poor 
enough to be bought. But in a country like America, 
where the suffrage is universal, the people will eventually 
sell their birth-right, and if by such means an aristocra- 
tic government is elected, it will be able to amend the 
constitution and pass what laws it pleases." And again, 
" Power once gained by the people is never to be re- 
covered except by bribery and corruption." — Marryat, 
passim. 

e2 



42 OKIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

I congratulate the Americans on the prospect of hav- 
ing their constitution voluntarily amended, some day or 
other, by men who shall have won their way to the 
possession of political power by bribery and corruption! 
To speak seriously, however, it is somewhat remarkable 
that such miserable drivelling should, in any part of Eng- 
land, be mistaken for common sense, or sound philoso- 
phy ! If the English voters are not poor enough to be 
bought, those of America are not poor enough to sell 
their birth-right. And even if they were inclined to do 
so, all the wealth of the would-be aristocrats, whom 
Captain Marry at — this half-pay moralist — is so anxious 
to teach the aristocratic lesson of bribery and corruption, 
would be insufficient to effect the purchase. 

On all the great principles of their common govern*- 
ment, all parties in America are perfectly at one. It 
is only in matters of minute detail, as to how these 
principles should be applied in particular cases, that 
there is any difference. Although I am no financier 
myself, I believe I am correct in stating that the ablest 
men in that department in England have not yet decid- 
ed the question, as to whether our own great national 
Bank has hitherto been a national benefit, or a na- 
tional evil. Now this is in reality the main question 
between the two great political parties that divide 
America — the Federalists, or Whigs, and the Adminis- 
trationists, or Democrats. The former, who comprise the 
merchants, are strong in the cities ; the latter, who 
constitute the agriculturists, are strong in the country ; 
and, as far as I could ascertain from personal observa- 
tion, as well as from the testimony of competent wit- 
nesses, neither the wealth, nor the talent, nor the piety 
of the nation, is engrossed by either party, In addi- 
tion to the Bank question, however, there is another 
that, I confess, deeply agitates America, in every pe- 
riodical return of their national elections. It is simply 
the great question that agitates us here — who shall ob- 
tain the power and divide the spoil ? 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 43 

" The determination to have an aristocracy in Ame- 
rica," observes Capt. Marryat, meaning an aristocracy of 
wealth, as he has himself explained it, " gains head every 
day ; a conflict must ensue, when the increase of wealth 
in the country adds sufficiently to the strength of the 
party." The increase of wealth in America will always 
be accompanied with a corresponding increase of popu- 
lation, and the circumstances of society and the ba- 
lance of power will therefore remain, for the future, 
precisely the same in this particular as at present. As 
to the alleged desire for an aristocracy in America, I am 
confident no intelligent American, who can discern the 
real interests of his country, either has, or can have, the 
slightest desire for any thing of the kind. The general 
distribution of property in America, arising from the 
want of an aristocracy, to treasure up the wealth of the 
country in vast accumulations, and to spend it, as is 
done so frequently in England, in heartless extravagance 
and dissipation ; or rather from the abolition of the 
laws of primogeniture and of entail — this general dis- 
tribution of property in the United States gives a per- 
sonal and direct interest in the maintenance of the great 
political institutions of the country, to perhaps four 
times the number of persons in America, as compared 
with the number of those who have such an interest in 
England. The beneficial effect of such a distribution 
of property on the general morality of the country, must 
be self-evident ; especially to all who can perceive any 
propriety in the prayer of Agur, " Give me neither po- 
verty nor riches." 

Then, as to the personal character and influence of 
the men who really do form a species of aristocracy in 
the one country as well as in the other — I mean the 
statesmen and legislators of each — I will only mention 
a single fact, which, however, speaks volumes on the 
subject. Of the members of the present American 
Congress— amounting to about two hundred and fifty 



44 ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS OF 

altogether — there are not fewer than forty, of such de- 
cided piety, as to hold social meetings for prayer in the 
city of Washington. Let Captain Marryat only pro- 
duce a similar proportion of equally decided Christian 
men from our own House of Commons, and I shall, 
most willingly, acknowledge that he has written the 
truth.* 

As I shall not recur to this subject again, I shall 
conclude this chapter with the following quotation, on 
the prospect of an aristocracy in America, from the ad- 
mirable work of M. de Tocqueville, who, compared with 
Captain Marryat as a writer on America and her insti- 
tutions, is as Hyperion to a satyr. 

" Some of our European politicians expect to see an 
aristocracy arise in America, and they already predict 
the exact period at which it will be able to assume the 
reins of government. I have previously observed, and 
I repeat my assertion, that the present tendency of 
American society appears to me to become more and 
more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that 
the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict 
the circle of political rights in their country, or confis- 
cate those rights to the advantage of a single individual ; 
but I cannot imagine that they will ever bestow the ex- 
clusive exercise of them upon a privileged class of citi- 
zens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an 
aristocracy. 

" An aristocratic body is composed of a certain num- 
ber of citizens, who, without being very far removed 
from the mass of the people, are, nevertheless, perman- 
ently stationed above it : a body which it is easy to 
touch, and difficult to strike ; with which the people are 
in daily contact, but with which they can never combine. 
Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature, and 
to the secret propensities of the human heart, than a 

* As 250 : 40 ;: 600 : 96— the number required 



THE ATLANTIC STATES OF AMERICA. 45 

subjection of this kind ; and men, who are left to follow 
their own bent, will always prefer the arbitrary power of 
a king to the regular administration of an aristocracy. 
Aristocratic institutions cannot subsist without laying 
down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, 
as a part and parcel of the legislation affecting the con- 
dition of the human family, as much as it affects that of 
society ; .but these are things so repugnant to natural 
equity, that they can only be extorted from men by 
constraint. 

" I do not think a single people can be quoted, since 
human society began to exist, which has, by its own 
free will and by its own exertions, created an aristocracy 
within its own bosom. All the aristocracies of the middle 
ages were founded by military conquest ; the conqueror 
was the noble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequa- 
lity was then imposed by force ; and after it had been 
introduced into the manners of the country, it maintain- 
ed its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legisla- 
tion. Communities have existed which were aristocra- 
tic from their earliest origin, owing to circumstances an- 
terior to that event, and which became more democratic 
in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the 
Romans, and of the barbarians after them. But a peo- 
ple, having taken its rise in civilization and democracy, 
which should gradually establish an inequality of con- 
ditions, until it arrived at inviolable privileges and ex- 
clusive castes, would be a novelty in the world ; and 
nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish so 
singular an example."* 

* De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," page 401. Se* 
cond Amer. Ed. New York, 1838, 



CHAPTER II. 



VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION, AND OF THE 
ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS OF THE 
AMERICAN COLONIES, PREVIOUS TO THE RE- 
VOLUTION. 

As the pilgrim fathers who landed on Plymouth Rock, 
and laid the foundation of the future colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, in the year 1620, had been Brownists or 
Independents before they left England, as well as dur- 
ing the period of their temporary sojourning at Rotter- 
dam, in Holland ; and as the system of church govern- 
ment which they established in New England has, for 
some time past, been generally known in this country 
by the name of Congregationalism, it has been taken 
for granted, without investigation of any kind and with- 
out evidence, that it is identical with that of the Eng- 
lish Independents or Congregationalists. This idea, 
however, is altogether unfounded ; and there are none 
so ready as the New Englanders themselves to testify 
against the injury which they conceive is thus done them 
by misrepresenting the system under which their church 
has unquestionably flourished for upwards of two cen- 
turies past. " When the pious Robinson," observes the 
Rev. Samuel M. Worcester, A.M., the pastor of the 
Tabernacle Church in Salem, Massachusetts, " gave his 
farewell charge to those of his flock who were embark- 
ing for the American wilderness, and expressed his per- 
suasion, that the Lord had more truth yet to break forth 
out of his holy word, he unquestionably anticipated that 



VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION. 47 

the churches of the Reformation, founded upon these 
shores, would embrace farther light upon the principles 
of government and discipline, as also upon points of faith 
and duty. His anticipations have been realized, and the 
doctrines which he loved have been vindicated and en- 
forced by new arguments and more impressive illustra- 
tions. And Congregationalism, as established in New 
England, is a decided improvement upon the scheme of 
Independence, which, for a time at least, he advo- 
cated."* 

The passage from the farewell address of the Rev. 
Mr. Robinson to his people at Rotterdam, to which Mr. 
Worcester refers, is quoted by him as follows : — " If God 
reveal any thing to you by any other instrument of his, 
be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any 
truth by my ministry ; for I am verily persuaded, I am 
very confident, the Lord hath more truth yet to bring 
out of his holy word." And again, " I beseech you to 
remember it ; it is an article of your Church covenant, 
that you will be ready to receive whatever truth shall be 
made known unto you from the written word of God. 
Remember that, and every other article of your most 
sacred covenant. But I must herewithal exhort you to 
take heed what you receive as truth; examine it, consi- 



* rt Discourse delivered on the first Centennial Anniversary of 
the Tabernacle Church, Salem, Mass. April 26th, 1835. By Samuel 
M. Worcester, A.M., Pastor of the Church. Salem, 1835." I cannot 
help remarking, that my good friend, Mr. Worcester, was peculiarly 
happy in the choice of his text, on the occasion in question. It 
was Psalm lxxvi. 2, " In Salem also is his Tabernacle." The 
Tabernacle Church in Salem was so named by its founders, in ho- 
nour of the celebrated Mr. Whiten eld, whose place of worship in Lon- 
don, was of that name. Mr. W. died at Newburyport, Massachu- 
setts, a place in the neighbourhood of Salem. I had the melan- 
choly pleasure of occupying for a few minutes the arm-chair in 
which the venerable and apostolic man breathed his last. It is pre- 
served as an interesting relic of the olden time, in the collection of 
the Historical Society of Salem, 



48 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

der it, compare it with the other Scriptures of truth, 
before you do receive it."* 

What " farther light upon the principles of govern- 
ment and discipline " the Pilgrim Fathers of New Eng- 
land actually received and followed, in accordance with 
this apostolic injunction of their spiritual guide, the 
learned and pious Robinson, may be easily ascertained 
from the following passages, which I quote from an un- 
questionable authority. 

" Next unto the Bible, which was the professed, per- 
petual, and only directory of the churches of New Eng- 
land, they had no platform of their church government 
more exact than their famous John Cotton's well-known 
book of The Keys ; which book endeavours to lay out 
the just lines and bounds of all church power, and so 
defines the matter, that, as in the state there is a dis- 
persion of powers into several hands, which are to con- 
cur in all acts of common concernment, from whence 
ariseth the healthy constitution of a commonwealth ; in 
like sort he assigns the powers in the church unto 
several subjects, wherein the united light of Scripture 
and of nature have placed them, with a very satisfactory 
distribution. He asserts, that a Presbyterated Society 
of the faithful hath within itself a compleat power of 
self-reformation, or, if you will, of self-preservation, and 
may within itself manage its own choice of officers and 
censures of delinquents" " Nevertheless, because par- 
ticular churches of elders and brethren may abuse their 
power with manifold miscarriages, he asserts the neces- 
sary communion of churches in synods, who have autho- 
rity to determine, declare, and injoin, such things as 
may rectifie the male-administration, or any disorders, 

* In his account of the formation of the first church in Salem, in 
the year 1629, Hubbard, an early Puritan writer, quoted by Dr. 
Holmes, observes, " They aimed to settle a Reformed Church, ac- 
cording to their apprehension of the rules of the Gospel, and the 
pattern of the best reformed churches"' — Holmes' Annals, an. 1629. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 49 

dissentions, and confusions of the congregations, which 
fall under their cognizance. But still so as to leave 
unto the particular churches themselves the formal acts, 
which are to be done pursuant unto the advice of the 
council; upon the scandalous and obstinate refusal 
whereof, the council may determine to withdraw com- 
munion from them, as from those who will not be coun- 
selled against a notorious mismanagement of the juris- 
diction which the Lord Jesus Christ has given them. 
This was the design of that judicious treatise wherein 
was contained the substance of our church discipline."* 

It is evident, therefore, that the additional light on 
the principles of church government and discipline, 
which the New England congregationalists actually re- 
ceived and followed in the American wilderness, led 
them to reject the peculiar tenets of the English Inde- 
pendents, in regard to the union and communion of 
churches ; and to adopt those of the Scotch Presby- 
terians, and the other reformed churches of the Calvin- 
istic confession. Nay, Mr. Cotton Mather actually 
quotes the celebrated Scotch divine, Samuel Ruther- 
ford, whose opinion, in regard to what mainly consti- 
tutes Presbyterianism, no one will venture to contro- 
vert, as to the general conformity of the New England 
and Scotch systems of church government. 

" The famous Mr. Rutherford himself, in his treatise 
intituled, A Survey of the Spiritual State of Christ, 
has these words : ' Mr. Cotton, in his treatise of The 
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, is well sound in our 
way, if he had given some more power to assemblies, 
and in some lesser points.' "-j- 

In the years 1648 and 1649, a Synod of the 
Churches of New England was held at Cambridge* 

* Magnalia Christi Americana. By the Rev. Cotton Mather, 
A.M. Book v. sec. 1. London, 1702. 
f Magnalia, &c, ubi supra. 

F 



50 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

Massachusetts, to draw up and determine upon a plat* 
form of doctrine and discipline for these churches ; and 
in Chap. II. Sec. 5, of that platform, we find the fol- 
lowing declaration on this subject : — " The state of the 
members of the militant visible church, walking in 
order, was either before the law, (Economical, that is, 
in families ; or under the law, national ; or since the 
coming of Christ, only congregational ; (the term inde* 
pendent we approve not,) therefore neither national, 
provincial, nor classical." 

The 16th chapter of the Cambridge Platform, en- 
titled, Of Synods, is as follows : — 

1. Synods orderly assembled, and rightly proceeding 
according to the pattern, Acts xv., we acknowledge as 
the ordinance of Christ : and though not absolutely 
necessary to the being, yet many times, through the 
iniquity of men, and perverseness of times, necessary to 
the well-being of churches, for the establishment of 
truth and peace therein. 

2. Synods, being spiritual and ecclesiastical assem- 
blies, are therefore made up of spiritual and ecclesias- 
tical causes. The next efficient cause of them, under 
Christ, is the power of the churches sending forth their 
elders and other messengers, who, being met together 
in the name of Christ, are the matter of a synod ; and 
they, in arguing, and debating, and determining matters 
of religion, according to the Word, and publishing the 
same to the churches it concerneth, do put forth the 
proper formal acts of a synod, to the conviction of 
errors and heresies, and the establishment of truth and 
peace in the churches, which is the end of a synod. 

3. Magistrates have power to call a synod, by call- 
ing to the churches to send forth their elders, and other 
messengers, to counsel and assist them in matters of 
religion ; but yet, the constitution of a synod is a 
church act, and may be transacted by the churches, 
even when civil magistrates may be enemies to churches 
and to church assemblies. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 51 

4. It belongeth unto synods and councils to debate 
and determine controversies of faith, and cases of con- 
science ; to clear from the Word holy directions, for 
the holy worship of God and good government of the 
church ; to bear witness against mal-administration and 
corruption in doctrine or manners, in any particular 
church ; and to give directions for the reformation 
thereof : not to exercise church censures in way of dis- 
cipline, nor any other act of church authority or juris- 
diction, which that presidential synod did forbear. 

5. The synod's directions and determinations, so far 
as consonant to the Word of God, are to be received 
with reverence and submission ; not only for their 
agreement therewith (which is the principal ground 
thereof, and without which they bind not at all), but 
also secondarily, for the power, whereby they are made, 
as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in 
his word * 

Upwards of thirty years thereafter, we not only find 
synods assembling under this constitution, but as- 
sembled under the authority of the civil magistrates. 
Witness the following entry : — 

" A synod of the churches in the colony of the Mas- 
sachusetts being called by the honoured General Court, 
to convene at Boston, the 10th of September, 1679, 
having read and considered the Platform of Church 
Discipline, agreed upon by the synod assembled at 
Cambridge, anno 1648, do unanimously approve of the 
said Platform, for the substance of it, desiring that the 
churches may continue steadfast, in the order of the 
gospel, according to what is therein declared from the 
Word of God."f 

In the year 1708, another synod of the New Eng- 
land churches was held at Saybrook, Connecticut, in 
which the Cambridge Platform was not only confirmed, 

* Magnalia, &c, ubi supra. f lb. Book v. 



52 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

but had something more of the distinctive features of 
Presbyterianism infused into it, in accordance, it seems, 
with the wishes of a considerable portion of the New 
England clergy. The Saybrook Platform, which has 
ever since been the ecclesiastical directory of Con- 
necticut, was afterwards published under the title of 
" Heads of Agreement assented to by the United 
Ministers, formerly called Presbyterians and Congrega- 
tionalists." It is true, there was no general synod held 
after that period, in New England, till the revolutionary 
war ; but this did not happen through the indisposition 
of the New England clergy to such assemblies, but was 
rather the result of the meddling character and into- 
lerant spirit of the Episcopalians of the day ; for, in the 
year 1725, when a petition, signed by Cotton Mather, 
as moderator of a convention of New England ministers, 
was presented to the local government, soliciting per- 
mission to hold a synod, the prayer of which was 
granted, as a matter of course, by the Lieutenant-Go- 
vernor and Council, the Episcopalian ministers, of whom 
there were only twelve, altogether, in New England, 
wrote to the Bishop of London, requesting his inter- 
ference to prevent the assembling of the proposed 
synod. In consequence of this interference, the matter 
was referred to the Lords Justices of England, and the 
result of their solemn deliberation on the subject was, 
that the permission actually granted should be negatived, 
and the Lieutenant-Governor, who probably could see no- 
thing seditious in a peaceful meeting of colonial clergy, 
reprimanded from home, for giving his consent to 
so important a measure, without previously consulting 
the authorities in England.* Such was the miserable 
state of vassalage and petty tyranny from which the 
American colonies w r ere at length happily delivered by 
their Revolution. 

* Holmes' Annals. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 53 

The only difference between the system of church 
government thus established in New England, for up- 
wards of two centuries, and that of the Presbyterian 
church, is, that while the affairs of each particular con- 
gregation are managed, under the latter system, by a 
church session, consisting of the pastor and a body of 
elders chosen from the congregation, they are managed 
under the former by the whole body of church mem- 
bers, each of whom has the same vote as the pastor : 
in other words, the Presbyterian ecclesiastical system 
is republican throughout ; the Congregational is demo- 
cratical. In cases, however, in which either the pastor 
or a minority of the congregation are dissatisfied with 
the proceedings of the majority, under the New Eng- 
land system, recourse is allowed either to the County 
Association or Consociation of Churches, or to the 
General Association of the State — bodies in all respects 
similar to the presbyteries and general synods or as- 
semblies of the Presbyterian system ; for, although 
these Associations have no legislative or judicial au- 
thority, public opinion, and the uniform practice of the 
New England churches, give their decisions, which are 
technically called Results, all the force of a decision of 
the highest ecclesiastical court in the Presbyterian 
church. 

Of the working of this system, the Rev. Mr. Wor- 
cester gives an interesting example, in the early history 
of the church at Salem, of which he is himself the 
pastor. Certain difficulties, originating, it would seem, 
in a mere trifle, having arisen in the first church in 
Salem, about the year 1733, a minority of twenty-one 
members of that church appealed from the decision of 
the majority, with whom was the pastor, the Rev. Mr. 
Fisk, first to a smaller, and afterwards to a larger asso- 
ciation of churches, or ecclesiastical council, agreeably 
to the Cambridge Platform ; the latter of these coun- 
cils consisting of twenty-seven churches, having thirty 

f 2 



54 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

ministers altogether. Of these churches, nineteen sent 
clerical and lay delegates to the council, who at their 
first meeting, held at Salem, July 16th, 1734, confirmed 
the decision of the smaller council, whose Result had 
been unfavourable to the pastor and the majority of the 
divided church, and then adjourned, to meet again at 
Salem, on the 15th of October following. The pastor 
and the majority were earnestly advised, in the mean 
time, to come to terms with their aggrieved brethren, 
and threatened with the highest ecclesiastical censures 
in the event of their refusal. This advice, however, 
was ineffectual ; and the council accordingly voted, at 
their adjourned meeting, " that the First Church in 
Salem had forfeited the privilege of communion with 
the churches represented in their body. The sentence 
of non- communion, however, was delayed for three 
months. It then went into effect ; and the churches 
of New England were called to witness the singular 
spectacle of a sister-church excluded from the pale of 
fellowship." 

The position which Mr. Fisk and the majority of his 
church members had taken up, in direct opposition to 
the principles of the Cambridge and Saybrook Plat- 
forms, was that of English Independency, as distinct 
from New England Congregationalism, or rather, as 
directly opposed to it, viz. that no other churches had 
any right to interfere in the management of the internal 
affairs of his church ; and, as an important and funda- 
mental principle of the whole system of the church 
government of New England was thus in question, it 
became absolutely necessary, on the part of the 
churches generally, to have the point definitively 
settled. " Mr. Fisk," it is well observed by Mr. Wor- 
cester, " was a man of distinguished abilities ; but the 
principles of ecclesiastical government, for which he 
contended, were at war with the established usages of 
Congregationalism ; and, as applied by himself, would 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 55 

expose the churches to all the evils of anarchy in ge- 
neral, and despotism in particular. Aggrieved mi- 
norities could have no possible redress or relief."* 

" On the 18th of April, 1735, the party dissatisfied 
with Mr. Fisk, (i, e. the minority sustained by the 
council,) voted to dismiss him, and to hire Samuel 
Mather, of Boston, to supply their pulpit. And in the 
forenoon, on the last sabbath of the month, Mr. Fisk 
was forcibly prevented from preaching. Never again 
did he make an effort to occupy his pulpit. Accom- 
panied by three-fourths, at least, of the church and 
society, he abandoned the house of worship to the 
aggrieved brethren and their associates." 

" That a minority should thus be able to triumph, is 
easily explained, when we consider how much moral 
power was wielded by an ecclesiastical council, whose 
decisions were just, and whose sentence was ratified by 
the voice of public opinion. The majority of the First 
Church were under the ban of excommunication, ac- 
cording to the ' Third way of Communion.' The 
churches generally, though not unanimously, approved 
of the measure. Not only so, but the colonial legis- 
lature sanctioned the votes of the aggrieved party, and 
cut off Mr. Fisk and his friends from all hope of relief. 
Such was the energy and the efficiency of Congre- 
gationalism, one hundred years since. "f 

It is worthy of remark, that, in the year 1745, •". e. 
ten years after the ejectment of Mr. Fisk and his con- 
tumacious majority from the First Church in Salem, 
that very majority " had become fully sensible of their 
error in adhering to Mr. Fisk, in opposition to the 
Christian advice and solemn admonition of the churches, 
which had dealt with them previous to the separation. 
Happy were they to avail themselves of the aid of 
sister-churches, to extricate them from the embar- 

* Mr. Worcester's Discourse. t Ibid. 



56 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

rassments and disasters into which they had been 
plunged, by their obstinate defiance of what they had 
pronounced unscriptural and unauthorized interference. 
They made a humble confession, and the sentence of 
non-communion was rescinded."* 

It is worthy of remark, also, that, at a subsequent 
period (in the year 1769), when the Third Church in 
Salem had been guilty of some irregularity, in neglect- 
ing to solicit the countenance and assistance of the 
neighbouring churches, on the occasion of the installa- 
tion of their pastor, three of the neighbouring clergy, in 
a letter to the brethren of that church, remonstrated 
and protested against the new and unheard-of practice, 
as one " savouring of Independency ." The following 
is an extract of their letter ; and is interesting for its 
general tone and spirit, as well as for the testimony 
which it bears to the principles and practice of the Pil- 
grim Fathers. 

" Our worthy and pious ancestors of this Province 
esteemed the Congregational plan of church polity 
most agreeable to the gospel, and most favourable to 
the religious liberties and rights of individuals and so- 
cieties. The First Church in Salem (and in the Pro- 
vince), from which we all descended, did formerly, from 
time to time, solemnly renew their original covenant, 
and professed their adherence to Congregational prin- 
ciples, and particularly that they will no way slight 
their sister churches ; but use their counsel as need 
shall be. 

" Now, it has been the constant usage of these 
churches, from the beginning, to ask the presence of 
sister churches in the settlement of pastors, whether at 
their first ordination or instalment, and that for such 
obvious reasons, among others, as follows, to testify 
their union and charity — to derive mutual help and 

* Worcester's Discourse, page 11. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 57 

strength from each other — to be so satisfied of the qua- 
lifications of pastors, as to embrace them in their public 
characters, and open their doors to them in all occa- 
sional acts of their ministry, and thereby maintain that 
friendly correspondence and communion which is so 
beneficial to the common cause of religion. 

" It is a maxim of prudence, not to deviate from 
established customs, but for weighty reasons. Your 
departing, therefore, from the practice of these churches, 
into a mode savouring of independency, will, we fear, be 
found inconvenient to yourselves in consequence ; and 
any act of ours, showing an approbation of it, may, so 
far as our small influence reaches, be hurtful to the 
communion of churches, give umbrage to our own 
churches in particular, and bring us under blame from 
those who wish well to our ecclesiastical state."* 

The reader will doubtless excuse the length of the 
preceding extracts, when he reflects on the frequent 
efforts that have been made, of late years, to repre- 
sent the ecclesiastical system of the New England 
churches as altogether identical with that of the Eng- 
lish Independents. On the contrary, it must be evi- 
dent from these extracts, that no two systems can be 
more opposed to each other ; as the fundamental prin- 
ciple of the system of the Independents is, that each 
congregation or society constitutes a complete church, 
with the internal affairs of which no other church can 
have any thing to do ; whereas, the fundamental prin- 
ciple of the system of New England, as it is also of the 
Presbyterian church, is, that each congregation forms a 
part of the general church of Christ, and is amenable, 
even for the exercise of church government and disci- 
pline towards its own members, to the cognizance and 
authority of the whole communion to which it belongs. 
We find, accordingly, that the Congregationalists of 

* Worcester's Discourse — Appendix, page 53. 



58 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

New England have, all along considered themselves as 
much more closely allied to Presbyterians, than to In- 
dependents. The venerable President Day, of Yale 
College, Connecticut, told me he had never heard of 
their being designated by any other name than Pres- 
byterians, in that State, till he was thirty years of age. 
I subjoin another, and a much more interesting ex- 
ample, not merely of the working, but of the thoroughly 
Presbyterian character of the ecclesiastical system of 
New England ; interesting, in the highest degree, to 
all orthodox Protestants, inasmuch as it exhibits the 
manner in which the Unitarian heresy, which after- 
wards made such desolating progress in Massachusetts, 
was successfully eradicated, even after it had seemed to 
have taken firm root, in the neighbouring State of Con- 
necticut. In the year 1805, the Rev. John Sherman, 
A. B., minister of the First Church in the town of 
Mansfield, Connecticut, having not only broached Uni- 
tarian doctrines, but induced a majority of the members 
of his church to receive them, and to sign a paper, be- 
sides, pledging themselves, forsooth, not to quarrel 
about doctrines during his incumbency — for this, it 
seems, was the adroit way in which the church of 
Mansfield was to be Socinianized — a minority of the 
members of the church, feeling themselves aggrieved, 
addressed the following letter to the General Associa- 
tion or Presbytery of the county of Windham, in that 
State : — 

" To the General Association of the county of Wind- 
ham, to meet at Westford, in Ashford, on the third 
Tuesday in May, 1805. 

" Mansfield, April 29, 1805. 
" Reverend and Beloved, 
" We, the undersigned, are members of the Church 
in the South Society of Mansfield, of which the Rev. 
John Sherman is pastor, professing to be built on the 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 59 

foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone. We are deeply- 
wounded, when sentiments are advanced, which, to us, 
appear dishonourable to the glorious Redeemer, and 
calculated to destroy that system of religion he has 
taught, and eventually ruin immortal souls. The real 
Deity of Christ, or that the man Christ Jesus is truly 
and properly God, is a doctrine we have been taught, 
and in the belief of which we have been long esta- 
blished. It is a doctrine we cannot be persuaded to 
give up, but with the Bible which contains it. It is a 
doctrine on which rest our hopes of eternal salvation. 
In connexion, we have been in the habit of thinking, 
and are finally persuaded, that the doctrine of a trinity 
of persons in the Godhead, as held by Calvinistic di- 
vines for ages, is a doctrine clearly taught in the Holy 
Scriptures. These doctrines, however mysterious and 
incomprehensible, we consider as lying at the founda- 
tion of revealed truth, and as the very basis of Chris- 
tianity. But these doctrines, we are constrained to be- 
lieve, are denied and treated with levity by him we have 
received as our spiritual guide. 

" You, Rev. Gentlemen, are so fully acquainted with 
his sentiments on these points, that we need not enlarge 
for the sake of your information. We have heard him 
with pain on these subjects. We have not been un- 
mindful of him in our addresses to the Father of Lights, 
that he might be recovered from the dangerous error, 
and be a wise and faithful guide to souls. But we can 
no longer rest easy. We feel for the cause of truth : 
we feel for the honour of religion : we feel sensibly for 
the good of our children, and rising generation, whose 
moral interests we consider as greatly endangered. Un- 
der our burdens and pressing difficulties, we need the 
advice and prayers of the friends of truth and re- 
ligion. 

1 We desire, therefore, that this Association would 



60 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

take our case into their serious consideration, and point 
out to us the present path of duty, and the steps we 
ought to take for the honour of God, and the interest 
of the Redeemer among us. 

" John King, 
Amasa Palmer, 
Stephen Barrows, 
Samuel Storrs, 
Isaac Barrows, 
Nathaniel Hunt, 
Caleb Trowbridge, 
Ezra Fuller, 
Isaac Barrows, 3rd. 
John Brown ." 

Mr. Sherman, to whom a copy of this letter was sent 
in due course, having a majority of the Church, as well 
as the aforesaid paper, in his favour, got a vote passed 
in the mean time, referring the matters in dispute be- 
tween himself and the complainants to a special council, 
to be selected, of course, by the majority. To this 
measure, however, the complainants objected, and de- 
manded an investigation of the case by the County As- 
sociation, or Council, to which they had a right to ap- 
peal, under the Saybrook Platform ; which, like the 
Confession of Faith, in Scotland, had been ratified and 
confirmed as the ecclesiastical constitution of the State, 
by the supreme legislature. The Association accord- 
ingly assembled, and after a minute investigation of the 
case, voted, as their Result, " That it is expedient and 
proper that the ministerial connexion of the Rev. John 
Sherman with the First Church and Society in Mans- 
field should be dissolved ; and it is hereby dissolved." 

No decision of any ecclesiastical court in Scotland, 
deposing a minister for heresy, could be expressed in 
more peremptory terms, than this result of a New Eng- 
land Association ; and such decisions are always final in 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 61 

Connecticut — quite as much so, indeed, as those of the 
General Assembly in the Church of Scotland. Mr. 
Sherman, therefore, instead of accepting the invitation 
which the majority of his people gave him in the mo- 
ment of exasperation at their defeat to remain among 
them, as their pastor, and to form a separate church and 
congregation, deemed it advisable rather to leave Con- 
necticut altogether.* In the flippant pamphlet which 
he afterwards published on his case, at Utica, in the 
state of New York, in the year 1806, and from which I 
have extracted the preceding account and document, 
Mr. Sherman explains the technical word " Consocia- 
tion," the name of the council that deposed him, as 
" An ecclesiastical court, formed by a representation of 
the confederate churches in a county, with much the 
same powers as the General Assembly of the Presby- 
terian Church." It is a correct definition ; but the 
reader, if at all acquainted with ecclesiastical history, 
will not require to be informed that there is nothing 
similar to such a court among the English Independents. 
It will also be obvious to the reader, that if there had 
not been such a court to resort to in the case in ques- 
tion, the minority would have had no redress, and the 

* I was told by — Edwards, Esq., of New Haven, Connecticut, 
a grandson of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, that there is now one 
Unitarian church in that State. There is only one, however ; and 
it is very remarkable that such should be the case, as there are con- 
siderably upwards of a hundred in the adjoining state of Massachu- 
setts. But the Presbyterian element in the ecclesiastical constitution 
of New England has hitherto been kept strong and vigorous in the 
State of Connecticut; while in that of Massachusetts, the Indepen- 
dent element has latterly predominated; the Unitarian clergy of the 
latter State having adroitly managed, in the first instance, to bring ec- 
clesiastical councils, or church courts, into disuse, and afterwards into 
discredit. It is singular that the very same course should have been 
successfully employed by men of a kindred spirit in England, to 
transform the old Presbyterian churches of this country into Socinian 
places of worship. They were first divested of their Presbyterian 
character, and they then became Unitarian. 



62 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

First Church in Mansfield would have become irre- 
claimably Unitarian. 

One inestimable advantage which this ecclesiastical 
system has hitherto secured to New England is, that of 
a well educated clergy. The County Associations, or 
Presbyteries, were constituted, under the Cambridge 
and Say brook Platforms, the sole judges of ministerial 
qualifications ; and the sovereign people could therefore 
elect no man to the ministry who had not received the 
requisite education, and who had not been pronounced 
beforehand duly qualified by the neighbouring clergy. 
It is well known that under the system of the Indepen- 
dents the case is altogether different. The sovereign 
people, in an Independent congregation, may indeed 
take the advice of the neighbouring ministers as to the 
qualifications of any particular candidate for their suf- 
frages ; but if they choose to act without such advice 
or sanction, — and they are always doing so in some con- 
gregation or other in England, — who is there to hinder 
them under their peculiar ecclesiastical constitution ? 
Within the last few years, a German clergyman of my 
acquaintance having had to submit his credentials, which 
happened to be written in the Latin language, but in a 
very plain, legible hand, to a meeting of Independent 
ministers in England, one of these ministers — a man of 
some standing, too, in the religious world — took up the 
document, and after looking at it for some time, laid it 
down with great formality, saying, he " did not read 
German ;" another then took it up, and, in like manner, 
laid it down again, after due examination, saying, he 
66 was no French scholar." So awkward a mistake could 
not have happened in New England, as uneducated men 
are not permitted to enter the ministry there, under the 
Congregational Presbyterian system. With the best 
feelings, therefore, towards the Independents, I must state 
it as my opinion, that they have come far short of their 
duty in this respect, simply by allowing of no check what- 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 63 

ever upon the exercise of the democratic principle in 
their ecclesiastical constitution. They have thus opened 
their doors, in hundreds of instances, to an unedu- 
cated and pigmy clergy, and the decline of their in- 
fluence in many parts of England is the necessary re- 
sult. Would Owen, and Howe, and the other eminently 
learned and pious men, of the congregational commun- 
ion, in the seventeenth century, have admitted into the 
Christian ministry men who could not distinguish Latin 
from either French or German ? Certainly not. But 
Dr. Owen was no Independent. He was, like the New 
Englanders, a Congregational Presbyterian. 

The uniformly superior education which was thus se- 
cured to the clergy of New England, has had a reflex 
and most beneficial influence on the general education 
of the people, in providing for the establishment not 
only of common or elementary, but of superior or La- 
tin schools, throughout the country. One of the earlier 
laws of the state of Massachusetts has the following 
preamble, which one can scarcely suppose could have 
originated otherwise than in clerical suggestion : " It 
being one chief project of Satan to keep men from the 
knowledge of the Scriptures, by dissuading from the use 
of tongues ; and to the end that learning may not be 
buried in the graves of our forefathers, in church and 
commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavours ; there- 
fore, be it enacted, that there shall be a Latin school in 
every district of certain extent." How admirably this 
praiseworthy anxiety on the part of the Puritan clergy 
and people of New England, for the promotion of useful 
learning and general education, contrasts with the state 
of things at the very same period in the exclusively 
Episcopal colony of Virginia ! That colony was settled 
in the year 1607, and its population in the reign of 
Charles the Second, was not less than forty thousand 
souls, including about two thousand negroes — a popula- 
tion considerably greater than that of New England at 
the same period. But in the year 1670, Sir William 



64 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

Berkeley, the Governor of Virginia, replies as follows to 
one of the inquiries addressed to him respecting the 
state of that colony, by the Lords of Plantations, " I 
thank God," (for it was an age of abounding piety,) 
" there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we 
shall not have these hundred years ; for learning has 
brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects, into the 
world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against 
the best government. God keep us from both !"* The 
pious Matthew Henry observes, as my excellent mother 
used to remind me, that " we ought to be thankful even 
for small mercies." Sir William Berkeley was certainly 
thankful for very small ones. 

Excellent, however, as the New England ecclesiasti- 
cal system undoubtedly is, in various respects, its bene- 
ficial operation has too often been neutralized and coun- 
teracted through the undue predominance of the demo- 
cratic element of Independency. There is no case 
that so strongly illustrates this evil tendency, as that of 
the persecution and ultimate expulsion of the celebrated 
Jonathan Edwards, from the church in Northampton, 
Massachusetts, of which he had been for upwards of 
twenty years before the highly talented and devoted 
pastor. There were upwards of six hundred church- 
members, or communicants, in Northampton at the time 
alluded to, one-half of whom had been admitted by the 
venerable man himself, during the revival of 1735, of 
which he has given us so interesting, but, as appears by 
the sequel, so over-sanguine, an account. Many of 
these people, it seems, did not afterwards realize the ex- 
pectations of their worthy pastor, who, desirous, perhaps 
unwisely, of purging the church-roll, by subjecting cer- 
tain of their number to further examination as to their 
personal piety, was himself voted out, and dismissed by 
the sovereign people. It is melancholy to listen to the 
venerable man — the author of some of our most valu- 

* Hemmmgs , Laws of Virginia — Appendix. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 65 

able standard works in theology — lamenting over the 
imperfections of that system of ecclesiastical government 
under which he had thus been called to suffer so deeply 
and so undeservedly. " I have long," he says himself, in 
a letter to Mr. Erskine, quoted by Professor Hodge, " been 
out of conceit of our unsettled, independent, confused 
way of church-government ; and the Presbyterian way 
has ever appeared to me most agreeable to the word of 
God, and the reason and nature of things." It may be 
asked, indeed, Why did President Edwards not appeal 
to an ecclesiastical council, like the orthodox minority 
in the First Church of Mansfield ? To this I answer, 
That a man of eminent piety and strong feelings, as 
President Edwards evidently was, would just be the less 
likely to appeal to such a council against his ungrateful 
people, the more confidently he felt that he was in the 
right ; for it is the characteristic of a Christian man 
meekly and willingly to suffer wrong. 

It will appear, therefore, from the preceding review, 
that the New England ecclesiastical system is totally 
different, in certain most important points, from that of 
the English Independents. Ever since the visit of the 
Rev. Drs. Reed and Matheson, however, to the Ame- 
rican churches, individuals in this country have not 
only been endeavouring, through the press, to make 
the religious public believe that the two systems are 
in all respects the same, but have even been using 
every means of influence they can employ — especially 
by misrepresenting the state and character of the Ame- 
rican Presbyterian church — to induce the New England 
churches to reject the Presbyterian element of their 
peculiar constitution, and to revert to the system of 
Independency, which their Pilgrim Fathers, who had 
seen its imperfections, deliberately abjured. I trust, 
however, the New England churches will be on their 
guard against such influences. They have flourished 
exceedingly, for upwards of two centuries, under the 

g 2 



66 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 






Cambridge and Saybrook platforms ; for I question 
whether there is any other part of Christendom, in 
which there has been so much Christian knowledge, so 
much genuine piety, and so many revivals of religion, 
during the whole course of that long period, as in " the 
glorious and pleasant land" of New England. Why, 
then, should they seek to innovate upon that system, 
which not only secures to them a well-educated clergy, 
but provides such excellent and efficient checks against 
the overwhelming influence of the democratic principle, 
by casting themselves adrift upon the troubled and 
shoreless sea of Independency? The democratic prin- 
ciple, surely, requires no strengthening in America ; 
and wherever, therefore, either in church or state, the 
existing constitution provides a system of checks 
against its possible extravagance or abuse, the enlight- 
ened patriot will seek to confirm and strengthen these 
checks by every means in his power. 

At the same time, I am sorry to observe, that the 
natural, and, as I conceive, disorganizing influence of 
the English Independents on the New England churches, 
is likely to be greatly increased and promoted by the 
position which has recently been taken up by a large 
and influential portion of the American Presbyterian 
church. Forgetful of the fact, that that church has 
been indebted to New England, especially in the re- 
cently settled districts of New York and Ohio, for a 
large portion of her members, and for not a few, even, 
of her most zealous ministers ; and looking only to the 
adventitious circumstance, that heretical doctrine, as is 
alleged, has lately been taught by certain professors in 
certain of the schools and colleges of New England — a 
hue and cry has been got up against New England by 
the party I allude to, as if that part of the Union were 
a mere hot-bed of heresy ; and as if all connexion with 
its Christianity were necessarily evil, and supremely to 
be deprecated. Now, this is not like " men of under- 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 67 

standing, who know the times, and what Israel ought 
to do." In my humble opinion, it is not the way to 
put down heresy, but rather to confirm and spread it, 
to draw a magic circle around ourselves, and, taking 
our place in its centre, to say to all beyond it, " Stand 
back, for we are holier than ye." From all I could 
learn, in the course of repeated conversations with men 
of unquestioned piety and of extensive acquaintance in 
New England, I was led to believe that the alleged 
heresies were confined to a very small circle in that 
country, and that the great body of the clergy and 
people were still sound in the faith, adhering sincerely 
to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession and 
Shorter Catechism, which the New England churches 
had long since and cordially received. In such cir- 
cumstances, indiscriminate charges of heresy are as 
impolitic, on the one hand, as they are unchristian and 
unwarrantable on the other ; as they tend to produce 
that alienation of mind, between parties and individuals, 
which will at length lead many to hate the truth, 
simply on account of the uncharitable conduct of those 
" who hold it in unrighteousness." 

From the first settlement of the New England co- 
lonies, the Congregational Presbyterian Church was 
supported, except in the little State of Rhode Island, 
in which there was no church establishment, by a 
general assessment, imposed and collected annually, in 
each town or district, by the Select-men, or district 
authorities. Early in last century, when the officers 
of government, who were generally episcopalians from 
the mother country, and the few other resident mem- 
bers of that communion, began to form a small party in 
the New England community, the members of the epis- 
copal church were relieved from this assessment, by 
successive enactments of the colonial legislatures. The 
episcopal clergy in New England, from this period till 
the Revolution, were, with only three exceptions, mis- 
sionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the 



68 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

Gospel ; and these missionaries were thus sent forth to 
the American colonies at the expense of the religious 
public in England, not to carry the gospel to those who 
had never heard it before, as the venerable Society was 
ostensibly incorporated for doing, but to proselytize to 
the Church of England the descendants of the Pilgrim 
Fathers, who had already a standing ministry of their 
own, comprising not fewer than five hundred and fifty 
regularly educated and ordained ministers of the Con- 
gregational Presbyterian Church. In Connecticut, the 
legislature had simply relieved all persons professing 
themselves episcopalians from the general assessment. 
The episcopal missionaries in that colony, who, it 
seems, were rarely men of evangelical principles, ac- 
cordingly perambulated the country in all directions, 
and, wherever they found individuals whom they could 
influence by such considerations, got them to declare 
themselves episcopalians, merely to get rid of the as- 
sessment ; assuring them that, in that case, they would 
have nothing to pa}^ as they received their salaries from 
the Society in England. Such a state of things suffi- 
ciently accounts for the facts detailed in the following 
statement by the Rev. Dr. Chandler, an American 
episcopalian clergyman of the middle of last century, 
who laboured long and zealously to have bishops estab^ 
lished, by act of parliament, in America. "As to Con- 
necticut, of which I can judge from my own observa- 
tion, the church has increased there most amazingly, 
for tw r enty or thirty years past. I cannot at present 
recollect an example, in any age or country, wherein so 
great a proportion of proselytes has been made to any 
religion, in so short a time, as has been made to the 
Church of England in the western division of that po- 
pulous colony ; unless where the power of miracles, or 
the arm of the magistrate, was exerted to produce that 
effect."* It is easy to conceive how vast a number of 
* Dr. Chandler, quoted by Professor Hodge. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 69 

proselytes from the Church of England would be made, 
even in a single year, in the mother country, if the same 
notable experiment could be tried. If it were declared, 
for example, by the legislature, that no person of some 
favoured communion, whether Independent, Presby- 
terian, or Baptist, should henceforth require to pay 
tithes to the regular clergy, we should, in that case, 
have whole counties dissenting by the lump. In the 
State of Massachusetts, however, where a different plan 
was followed from that of Connecticut, the result was 
correspondingly different. There, the assessment was 
still universal ; episcopalians being merely indulged in 
having the amount they contributed paid over by the 
Select-men to their own clergy. Under this system, as 
proselytism was not profitable, it was very rare. 

Encouraged by the indulgence granted to the Epis- 
copalians, the Baptists in Connecticut petitioned for a 
similar exemption, and readily obtained it. In Massa- 
chusetts, however, it was refused till after the Revolu- 
tion, on the ground that their ministers were, for the most 
part, illiterate men, and that to recognize them in that 
capacity by an act of the legislature, would be to bring 
the ordinances of religion into contempt. In the de- 
bates on the subject, in the colonial legislature, the 
case of a Baptist minister in Massachusetts was particu- 
larly commented on, who, in quoting the Scriptural ex- 
pression, " The Lord is a buckler to them that fear 
him," in one of his sermons, quoted it, " The Lord is 
a butler? &c. 

The insolence of the missionaries of the Society for 
the Propagation of the Gospel, who were stationed in 
New England^ about the middle of last century, was 
extreme, and the alarm that was spread throughout the 
American colonies, in consequence of the support which 
their madly ambitious views uniformly obtained in Eng- 
land, was correspondingly great. Although the Episco- 
palians did not constitute more than a thirtieth part of 



70 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

the whole population of the northern colonies — includ- 
ing New England, New York, New Jersey, and Penn- 
sylvania — previous to the war of independence, these 
men had divided the whole country into parishes, of 
which they styled themselves the Rectors, designating 
the people of all other communions as their parishioners, 
and their clergy as schismatical teachers, who ought not 
to be encouraged. In a publication of the day, one of 
their number, the Rev. James Wetmore, Rector of the 
parish of Rye, in Connecticut, and Missionary of the 
Venerable Society, &c, avows their determination to 
subvert the New England churches, by whatever means ; 
observing, that " Such congregations, whatever they may 
call themselves, and whatever show they may make of 
piety and devotion in their own ways, ought to be es- 
teemed in respect of the mystical body of Christ only 
as excrescences in the body natural, or perhaps as fun- 
gosities on an ulcerated tumour, the eating away of 
which, by whatever means, tends not to the hurt, but to 
the soundness and health of the body?* One of the 
approved modes of the period for the eating away of 
this American tumour in the body politic and ec- 
clesiastical of England, was the proposed appointment 
of at least three American bishops, under an Act of 
the Imperial Parliament, with suitable revenues, and 
corresponding powers; and in the publications of the 
abettors of the measure, it was represented that the 
Americans would be a disloyal people indeed, if they 
refused the small tax that would be requisite for their 
support. The missionaries of the Venerable Society 
were the warmest advocates of this measure ; as they 
doubtless conceived it would give them a territorial 
establishment, with all the other endowments and im- 
munities of the established clergy in England. In 
short, although the Stamp Act and the tax on tea were 

* Wetmore, quoted by Professor Hodge, Hist. Presb. Ch. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 71 

the immediate occasion of the war of American inde- 
pendence, it cannot be doubted that it was the lordly- 
pretensions of the insignificant minority who then con- 
stituted the Church of England in America, backed, as 
they were, with all the influence and the power of the 
mother country, that produced, in no small degree, that 
deep and general alienation of the public mind in the 
colonies, that led to the ultimate dismemberment of the 
empire. 

When the war actually broke out, the Episcopal 
clergy of New England, who, as I have already stated, 
were, with only three exceptions, missionaries of the 
Propagation Society, were Royalists almost to a man. 
Praiseworthy as this would undoubtedly have been in 
other circumstances, it was not to be wondered at if it was 
prompted, as it doubtless was, by other feelings than 
those of loyalty and duty, in theirs. They had no 
hold on the affections of the people. They could not 
identify themselves with them, " for better, for worse." 
They had nothing to expect from the success of the 
Americans ; for even their own salaries were derived 
from a foreign source, which, in that event, would be 
completely dried. It is related of one of them, who, 
if I recollect aright, was stationed at New London, in 
Connecticut, that he continued to read the prayer for 
the King, in the English Liturgy, the first and second 
Sabbaths after the Declaration of Independence. His 
people, although Episcopalians, were nevertheless Ame- 
ricans, and had made common cause with their bleeding 
country. They bore with the good man, however, the first 
and the second Sabbath ; but when he ventured to read 
the prayer for the king the third Sabbath, they could 
stand it no longer, and accordingly marched up delibe* 
rately to the desk in a body, lifted him out of it without 
saying a word, carried him out of the church, and then 
shutting the door and locking it, put the key in their 
pocket. 



72 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

There were other American Episcopalian clergymen at 
that interesting period, however, who were not restrained 
by any alleged scruples of conscience from continuing to 
discharge the duties of their office under the new order 
of things. The late venerable Bishop White, of Penn- 
sylvania, the real father of tbe Episcopal Church in 
America, was then chaplain to the Congress, and con- 
tinued to read the prayer for the king till the Sabbath 
immediately preceding the famous 4th of July. His 
conscience did not reprove him for omitting it then, or 
for thenceforth enforcing upon his people their duty to 
their country. The Presbyterian clergy, to a man, pur- 
sued a precisely similar course ; for when the rulers of 
their country had at length passed the Rubicon, they did 
not hesitate to identify themselves completely, in so far 
only, however, as they could, in their ministerial capa- 
city, with the cause of their country and their people. 

As it will, doubtless, be interesting to the student of 
history to learn the precise course which conscientious 
and Christian men actually pursued in so difficult a crisis, 
I subjoin the following account of a pastoral letter, ad- 
dressed, in the year 1775, the year before the Declara- 
tion of Independence, by the Synod of New York and 
Philadelphia, to the churches of the Presbyterian com- 
munion under their care. I extract it from the second 
volume of Dr. Hodge's valuable History of the Ame- 
rican Presbyterian Church, published at Philadelphia 
during the present year. As a literary production, the 
Pastoral Letter is evidently of a superior order, highly 
creditable to the body from which it emanated ; as a po- 
litical document, it is unexceptionable ; as a Christian 
testimony and admonition, it is all that could possibly 
be desired. 

" In this memorable year also, the Synod addressed 
a long and excellent letter to the churches. It thus be- 
gins : ' The Synod of New York and Philadelphia, be- 
ing met at a time when public affairs wear so threatening 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 73 

an aspect, and when, unless God in his sovereign provi- 
dence speedily prevent it, all the horrors of a civil war 
throughout this great continent are to be apprehended, 
were of opinion that they could not discharge their 
duty to the numerous congregations under their care, 
without addressing them at this important crisis. As 
the firm belief and habitual recollection of the power 
and presence of the living God, ought at all times to 
possess the minds of real Christians ; so in seasons of 
public calamity, when the Lord is known by the judg- 
ments which he executeth, it would be an ignorance or 
indifference highly criminal, not to look up to him with 
reverence, to implore his mercy by humble and fervent 
prayer, and, if possible, to prevent his vengeance, by 
timely repentance. We do, therefore, brethren, beseech 
you, in the most earnest manner, to look beyond the 
immediate authors either of your sufferings or fears, 
and to acknowledge the holiness and justice of the Al- 
mighty in the present visitation.' The Synod then ex- 
hort the people to confession and repentance ; remind- 
ing them that their prayers should be attended with a 
sincere purpose and thorough endeavour after personal 
and family reformation. ' If thou prepare thine heart 
and stretch out thine hand towards him, if iniquity be 
in thine hands put it far away, and let not wickedness 
dwell in thy tabernacles.' 

" They considered it also a proper time to press on 
all of every rank, seriously to consider the things which 
belong to their eternal peace, saying, ' Hostilities long 
feared, have now taken place ; the sword has been drawn 
in one province ; and the whole continent, with hardlj 
any exception, seem determined to defend their rights 
by force of arms. If at the same time the British 
ministry shall continue to enforce their claims by vio- 
lence, a lasting and bloody contest must be expected. 
Surely, then, it becomes those who have taken up arms, 
and profess a willingness to hazard their lives in the 

H 



74 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

cause of liberty, to be prepared for death, which to many 
must be certain, and to every one is a possible or pro- 
bable event. 

" ' We have long seen with concern, the circum- 
stances which occasioned, and the gradual increase of 
this unhappy difference. As ministers of the gospel of 
peace, we have ardently wished that it might be, and 
often hoped that it would have been more early accom- 
modated. It is well known to you, otherwise it would 
be imprudent indeed thus publicly to profess, that we 
have not been instrumental in inflaming the minds of 
the people, or urging them to acts of violence and dis- 
order. Perhaps no instance can be given on so inter- 
esting a subject, in which political sentiments have been 
so long and fully kept from the pulpit ; and even malice 
itself has not charged us with labouring from the press. 
But things have now come to such a state, that as we 
do not wish to conceal our opinions as men and citizens, 
so the relation in which we stand to you, seemed to 
make the present improvement of it to your spiritual 
benefit, an indispensable duty.' 

" Then follows an exhortation directed principally to 
young men, who might offer themselves as ' champions 
of their country's cause/ to cultivate piety, to reverence 
the name of God, and to trust his providence. * The 
Lord is with you while ye be with him ; and if ye seek 
him, he will be found of you ; but if ye forsake him, he 
will forsake you.' 

" After this exhortation, the Synod offered special 
counsels to the churches as to their public and general 
conduct. 

" ' First : In carrying on this important struggle, let 
every opportunity be taken to express your attachment 
and respect to our sovereign King George, and to the 
revolution principles by which his august family were 
seated on the British throne. We recommend, indeed, 
not only allegiance to him from principle and duty, as 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 75 

the first magistrate of the empire, but esteem and reve- 
rence for the person of the prince, who has merited well 
of his subjects on many accounts, and who has probably 
been misled into his late and present measures by those 
about him ; neither have we any doubt, that they them- 
selves have been in a great degree deceived by false 
representations from interested persons residing in Ame- 
rica. It gives us the greatest pleasure to say, from our 
own certain knowledge of all belonging to our com- 
munion, and from the best means of information of far 
the greatest part of all denominations in this country, 
that the present opposition to the measures of adminis- 
tration, does not in the least arise from disaffection to 
the king, or a desire of separation from the parent state. 
We are happy in being able with truth to affirm, that no 
part of America would either have approved or per- 
mitted such insults as have been offered to the sove- 
reign in Great Britain. We exhort you, therefore, to 
continue in the same disposition, and not to suffer op- 
pression or injury itself easily to provoke you to any 
thing which may seem to betray contrary sentiments. 
Let it ever appear that you only desire the preservation 
and security of those rights which belong to you as 
freemen and Britons, and that reconciliation upon these 
terms is your most ardent desire. 

" ' Secondly, be careful to maintain the union which 
at present subsists through all the colonies. Nothing 
can be more manifest than that the success of every 
measure depends on its being inviolably preserved ; and, 
therefore, we hope you will leave nothing undone which 
can promote that end. In particular, as the continental 
congress, now sitting at Philadelphia, consists of dele- 
gates chosen in the most free and unbiassed manner, by 
the body of the people, let them not only be treated 
with respect, and encouraged in their difficult service ; 
not only let your prayers be offered up to God for his 
direction in their proceedings, but adhere firmly to their 



76 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

resolutions ; and let it be seen that they are able to 
bring out the whole strength of this vast country to 
carry them into execution. We would also advise for 
the same purpose, that a spirit of candour, charity, and 
mutual esteem, be preserved and promoted towards those 
of different religious denominations. Persons of pro- 
bity and principle of every profession, should be united 
together as servants of the same Master ; and the expe- 
rience of our happy concord hitherto in a state of li- 
berty, should engage all to unite in support of the com- 
mon interest ; for there is no example in history in 
which civil liberty was destroyed, and the rights of con- 
science preserved entire. 

" ' Thirdly, we do earnestly exhort and beseech the 
societies under our care to be strict and vigilant in their 
private government, and to watch over the morals of 
their several members.' This duty is urged at some 
length, and then the letter proceeds thus : 

" * Fourthly, we cannot but recommend and urge in 
the warmest manner, a regard to order and the public 
peace ; and as in many places, during the confusion that 
prevails, legal proceedings have become difficult, it is 
hoped that all persons will conscientiously pay their 
just debts, and to the utmost of their power serve one 
another, so that the evils inseparable from a civil war 
may not be augmented by wantonness and irregularity. 

" ' Fifthly, we think it of importance at this time, to 
recommend to all of every rank, but especially to those 
who may be called to action, a spirit of humanity and 
mercy. Every battle of the warrior is with confused 
noise and garments rolled in blood. It is impossible to 
appeal to the sword without being exposed to many 
scenes of cruelty and slaughter ; but it is often observed 
that civil wars are carried on with a rancour and spirit 
of revenge much greater than those between indepen- 
dent states. The injuries received or supposed, in civil 
wars, wound more deeply than those of foreign enemies. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 77 

It is, therefore, more necessary to guard against this 
abuse, and recommend that meekness and gentleness of 
spirit which is the noblest attendant on true valour. 
That man will fight most bravely who never begins to 
fight till it is necessary, and who ceases to fight as soon 
as the necessity is over. 

" * Lastly, we would recommend to all the societies 
under our care, not to content themselves with attend- 
ing devoutly on general fasts, but to continue habitually 
in the exercise of prayer, and to have frequent occasional 
voluntary meetings for solemn intercession with God 
on this important trial. Those who are immediately 
exposed to danger need your sympathy ; and we learn 
from the Scriptures, that fervency and importunity are 
the very characters of that prayer of the righteous man 
that availeth much. We conclude with our most ear- 
nest prayer, that the God of heaven may bless you in 
your temporal and spiritual concerns, and that the pre- 
sent unnatural dispute may be speedily terminated by 
an equitable and lasting settlement on constitutional 
principles.' " 

During the struggle that ensued, after the Declara- 
tion of Independence, the Presbyterian communion were 
uniformly found on the side of freedom and the rights 
of men ; and it is generally allowed by those who are 
acquainted with the history of the period, that no pri- 
vate individual contributed more powerfully (through his 
great influence with that communion,) to the ultimate 
success of the Americans, than the Rev. Dr. Wither- 
spoon, President of New Jersey College, and after- 
wards Moderator of the first General Assembly of the 
American Presbyterian Church. Dr. Witherspoon was a 
minister of the Church of Scotland,* but had emigrated 

* He was first settled at Beith, in Ayrshire, and afterwards in 
Paisley, His work on Regeneration is well known, and his " Cha- 
racteristics," an able and popular satire on the general inefficiency of 

h2 



78 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

to America, on being elected President of the College 
of New Jersey — an office which was then illustrious even 
in England, from having been held so recently before by 
the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. Dr. W. was elected 
a member of the first American Congress, by the State 
of New Jersey ; and was one of the signers of the De- 
claration of Independence. All these facts were well 
known to the British troops and the American loyalists, 
and the Presbyterians were, therefore, the special ob- 
jects of their vengeance. Their churches were burnt, 
their property was laid waste, and certain even of their 
pastors were murdered as rebels. On the conclusion of 
the war, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia again 
addressed a pastoral letter to the churches under their 
care, in which they alluded feelingly to these circum- 
stances, of which the following is an extract : — 

" We cannot help congratulating you on the general 
and almost universal attachment of the Presbyterian 
body to the cause of liberty and the rights of mankind. 
This has been visible in their conduct, and has been 
confessed by the complaints and resentment of the com- 
mon enemy. Such a circumstance ought not only to 
afford us satisfaction on the review, as bringing credit 
to the body in general, but to increase our gratitude to 
God for the happy issue of the war. Had it been un- 
successful, we must have drunk deeply of the cup of 
suffering. Our burnt and wasted churches, and our 
plundered dwellings, in such places as fell under the 
power of our adversaries, are but an earnest of what we 
must have suffered, had they finally prevailed. 

" The Synod, therefore, request you to render thanks 
to Almighty God, for all his mercies spiritual and tem- 
poral ; and in a particular manner for establishing the 



a large proportion of the clergy of his day in Scotland, attracted 
the notice and the approbation of the celebrated Bishop War- 
burton. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 79 

independence of the United States of America. He is 
the Supreme Disposer, and to Him belong the glory, the 
victory, and the majesty. We are persuaded you will 
easily recollect many circumstances in the course of the 
struggle, which point out his special and signal interpo- 
sition in our favour. Our most remarkable successes 
have generally been when things had just before worn 
the most unfavourable aspect ; as at Trenton and Sara- 
toga at the beginning, in South Carolina and Virginia 
towards the end of the war."* 

There was, properly speaking, no civil establishment 
of religion under the Dutch government of New York. 
The churches were built, as they are at present, by the 
joint contributions of the people. The pews were then 
sold, to reimburse the subscribers, or to pay off the ori- 
ginal debt of the church, and an annual rental was im- 
posed on each pew for the support of the minister. 

Colonel Nicolls, who, after achieving the conquest of 
the colony, became Governor, under the patent of his 
master the Duke of York, in the year 1664, established 
liberty of conscience immediately after his accession to 
the government, by the following proclamation : — " In 
all territories of his Royal Highness, liberty of conscience 
is allowed ; provided such liberty is not converted into 
licentiousness, or the disturbance of others in the exer- 
cise of the Protestant religion." By a subsequent pro- 
clamation, the people were authorized to assess them- 
selves for the support of their ministers, and enjoined 
to pay them what they had agreed to. In the year 

1692, however, the liberty guaranteed to the Dutch co- 
lonists began to be seriously infringed on, and a series 
of attempts were made by the Governors, at the instiga- 
gation of parties in the mother country, to proselytize 
the colony to the Church of England. In the year 

1693, the Church of England was declared the esta- 

* Hist. Amcr. Pies. Ch. vol, ii. 



80 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

blished church of the colony, by an act of the House of 
Assembly, virtually forced upon it by the Governor, 
at a time when the members of that church were only 
a twenty -fifth part of the whole population ; and persons 
of all communions were accordingly assessed to provide 
for the maintenance of the Episcopal clergy. The 
Governor, Colonel Fletcher, even added insult to injury 
on the occasion ; for the Assembly having twice refused 
to pass an act for the support of the Episcopal clergy, his 
Excellency broke out upon them in the following choice 
diatribes : — " Gentlemen, the first thing that I recom- 
mended to you at our last meeting was to provide for 
a ministry," — as if they had had none before — " and no- 
thing is done in it. There are none of you but what 
are big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna 
Charta, which is your right, and the same law doth pro- 
vide for the religion of the Church of England, against 
Sabbath breaking, and all other profanity." And again, 
" I recommended to the former Assembly the settling of 
an able ministry, that the worship of God may be ob- 
served among us."* By an able ministry, the Governor 
meant an Episcopal ministry, to be settled by his own 
authority exclusively, over the Dutch congregations ; 
but the House of Assembly resolutely refused to pass 
any such tyrannical enactments. Governor Fletcher, 
however, (whose character was that of a mean, avaricious 
man,) was quite out-done by one of his successors, Lord 
Cornbury, a fierce, tyrannical bigot, who endeavoured 
to deprive the Dutch of all their religious liberties, and to 
force them into the Episcopal communion, in pursuance 
of instructions he had received to " give all counte- 
nance and encouragement to the exercise of the eccle- 
siastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, as far as 
conveniently might be, in the province — that no school- 
master be henceforward permitted to come from this 

* History of the Evangelical Churches of New York. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 81 

kingdom, and to keep school in that our said province, 
without the license of the said Lord Bishop of London," 
&c. I have already mentioned the imprisonment of the 
Rev. Francis M'Kemie, the father of the Presbyterian 
Church in America, by this petty despot. This clergy- 
man, having visited New York in the year 1707, had 
engaged to preach in the Dutch church ; but the Gover- 
nor having been informed of the circumstance, peremp- 
torily forbade. Having preached, however, to a small 
audience, collected in a private house in the city, he 
was apprehended and imprisoned for two months, by the 
Governor's order. At the expiration of that period, he 
was liberated on bail, and afterwards brought to trial.* 
" On his trial," Dr. Hodge states, " he was charged 
by the Attorney-General with contemning the Queen's 
ecclesiastical supremacy ; with using other rites and 
ceremonies than those contained in the Common Prayer 
Book ; with preaching without proper qualifications, 
and at an illegal conventicle, all which was declared to 
be contrary to the English statutes." I have already 
alluded to Mr. M'Kemie's masterly defence. He was 
acquitted of the high crimes and misdemeanours laid to 
his charge ; but by the Governor's express order, he was 
notwithstanding condemned to bear the whole expenses 
of the prosecution, amounting to three hundred dollars. f 
At that period, the whole population of the two colonies 
of New York and New Jersey, both of which were under 
the government of Lord Cornbury, did not exceed 
forty-five thousand persons ; and of these only eighteen 
hundred were Episcopalians ! This intolerant and anti- 
christian spirit was but little modified in the sequel ; 
for when the Scotch Presbyterians of New York at- 
tempted, again and again, during the two following 
reigns, to obtain a charter of incorporation to enable 
them to hold their church and burying ground in that 

* History of the Evangelical Churches of New York. 
f Ibid. 



82 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

city, they were not only opposed by the Episcopal Cor- 
poration of Trinity Church, but " the Bishop of Lon- 
don actually appeared repeatedly before the Committee 
of the Privy Council in opposition to their petition," and 
they were consequently obliged, for their own security, 
to have the property conveyed in trust to the Modera- 
tor and certain other members of the General Assembly 
of the Church of Scotland. 

These tyrannical proceedings, which were doubtless 
intended to strengthen the Church of England in the 
colonies, and to maintain their connexion with the mo- 
ther country, had necessarily quite the opposite ef- 
fect; by leading the colonists to identify the Church of 
England with every thing that was hostile to their civil 
and religious liberties, and thereby weakening the ties 
that still bound them to the land of their fathers. 

The colonies of Maryland and Virginia were long 
employed by the mother country, for precisely the same 
purpose as that for which the settlement of Botany Bay 
has, in later times, been appropriated, and from which 
that settlement has obtained its unenviable notoriety. 
These colonies were also resorted to, at an early 
period, by many of the unfortunate cavaliers ; and from 
both of these circumstances they contained, till a compa- 
ratively recent date, a much greater number of episco- 
palians than the settlements to the northward. By the 
original charter of Virginia, that colony was constituted 
an exclusively episcopalian settlement ; and it was ac- 
cordingly enacted by the Grand Assembly, or colonial 
legislature, in the year 1623, " That there be an uni- 
formitie in our churche, as neere as may be to the 
canons of England, both in substance and circumstance, 
and that all persons yeild obedience unto them under 
paine of censure."* By a subsequent ordinance, this 
enactment was explained and enforced, so as to subject 

* Hemmings' Laws of Virginia. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 83 

to immediate banishment from the colony all preachers 
and teachers who should not conform in every particular 
to the Church of England ; and, in virtue of this ordi- 
nance, three Puritan ministers from New England were 
actually banished from Virginia, in the year 1643.* It 
would appear, however, that even this enactment, and 
the subsequent banishment of the Puritans, failed to 
secure to the colony a pious and exemplary clergy ! 
For, in the year 1631, 7th Car. L, it was enacted by the 
Grand Assembly, that " Mynisters shall not give them- 
selves to excesse in drinkinge, or riott, spendinge theire 
tyme idellye by day or night, playinge at dice, cards, or 
any other unlawfulle game, &c."f " Now, as every new 
law," says Dr. Priestley, " is made to remove some in- 
convenience the State was subject to before the making of 
it, and for which no other method of redress was effectual, 
the law itself is a standing and the most authentic evi- 
dence we can require of the state of things previous to 
it.^j: The state of things in Virginia must, therefore, 
have been particularly bad, to require such a law as I 
have just quoted, for the reformation of the only body 
of clergy that were permitted to worship God publicly 
in its sacred territory. It is melancholy, indeed, to 
think how little improvement really took place in that 
well-governed colony, notwithstanding this unexception- 
able law ; for, at a much later period, Sir William 
Berkeley, the governor, replies as follows to the query 
of the Lords of Plantations, " What provision is there 
made for the paying of your ministers?" " We have 
forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid. 
But as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst 
are sent us ! y § 

The original provision for the clergy of this colony, 

* Holmes' Annals. f Hemmings' Laws of Virginia. 

J Priestley's Lectures on History, vol. i. p. 149. 
§ Appendix to Hemmings' Collection. 



84 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

as ordered by the Virginia Company, was a hundred 
acres of land as a glebe, in each parish, and £200 per 
annum as a salary, for each minister. It was after- 
wards ordered that the ministers should each receive 
yearly 1,500 lbs. of tobacco, and 16 barrels of corn, 
which, together, were then valued at £200.* As the 
value of tobacco, however, had subsequently fallen, the 
yearly stipend of each minister was ultimately fixed, by 
Act of Assembly, 8 William III., 1696, at 16,000 lbs. 
of tobacco, exclusive of lawful perquisites.^ And at 
this rate the stipends of the Virginian clergy were ac- 
cordingly paid, till the revolution. 

Towards the middle of last century, the Scotch- Irish 
had pushed up the Valley of Virginia, in such over- 
whelming numbers, from the western parts of Penn- 
sylvania ; and so many of the inhabitants of the eastern 
parts of Virginia had, in the mean time, fallen away to 
other communions, that the Episcopalians — who, in the 
eye of the law, had been the exclusive possessors of 
the soil for nearly a century and a half — were then only 
a third part of the whole population : and even this pro- 
portion was rapidly diminishing, from the general and 
deplorable inefficiency of their clergy. In these circum- 
stances, that eminent scholar and divine, President 
Davies, the immediate predecessor of Dr. Witherspoon, 
in the College of New Jersey, being then a recently 
ordained minister of the American Presbyterian church, 
was employed, under the synod of New York, to itine- 
rate in Virginia, on the express invitation of the nu- 
merous but scattered Presbyterians of that colony. 
This laborious duty Mr. Davies discharged with apos- 
tolic zeal, and corresponding success ; his labours hav- 
ing been abundantly blessed, to the conversion and sal- 
vation of many of the colonists. So earnestly had his 
arrival been expected, that the Presbyterians had got 

Holmes' Annals. f IXemmings , Laws of Virginia. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 85 

five places of worship, in as many different counties, 
erected and licensed before he reached the colony, in 
the year 1747. No difficulties were at that time 
thrown in his way ; but when, in consequence of his 
faithful and eloquent preaching, the number of non- 
conformists greatly increased, the Episcopalian clergy 
of the province immediately took the alarm, the co- 
lonial courts were moved to withhold licenses for the 
future, and the Bishop of London was at length ap- 
pealed to, to get a stop put, by authority, to such ir- 
regular proceedings. After informing the Bishop that 
" seven meeting-houses, situated in five counties, had 
been licensed by the General Court, for Mr. Samuel 
Davies," his correspondent, one of the Virginian clergy, 
submits to him the following most interesting case of 
conscience : — 

" I earnestly entreat the favour of your lordship's 
opinion, whether, in licensing so many meeting houses 
for one teacher, they have not granted him a greater 
indulgence than either the king's instructions or the 
Act of Toleration intended. It is not to be dissembled, 
that several of the laity as well as of the clergy are un* 
easy on account of the countenance and encouragement 
he has met with ; and I cannot forbear expressing mj 
own concern to see schism spreading itself through a 
colony which has been famous for the uniformity of 
religion. I had almost forgot to mention his holding 
forth on working days to great numbers of poor people, 
who generally are his followers. This certainly is in- 
consistent with the religion of labour, whereby they are 
obliged to maintain themselves and families ; and their 
neglect of this duty, if not seasonably prevented, may, 
in process of time, be sensibly felt by the government." 

The Bishops reply, of which the following is an 
extract, is notl ess characteristic than this appeal : — 

" The Act of Toleration was intended to permit dis- 
senters to worship in their own way, and to exempt 

i 



86 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION 

them from penalties, but it never was intended to per- 
mit them to set up itinerant preachers, to gather con- 
gregations where there were none before. They are, 
by the Act of William and Mary, to qualify in the 
county where they live ; and how Davies can be said 
to live in five different counties, they who granted the 
license must explain."* 

The Bishop would thus have willingly availed him- 
self, if he could, of the miserable technicalities of law, 
to prevent a zealous minister of the gospel from oc- 
casionally dispensing the ordinances of religion to whole 
congregations of professing Christians, widely separated 
from each other, in a thinly-inhabited country, for whom, 
moreover, it was impossible at the time to provide re- 
sident ministers for each congregation. This is only 
the more extraordinary, as, in a letter on the subject, 
addressed to the celebrated Dr. Doddridge, of date 
London, May 11, 1751, the Bishop characterises the 
Virginian episcopal clergy of that period, in perfect ac- 
cordance with the character which had been given their 
predecessors by Sir William Berkeley, eighty years be- 
fore, in the following terms : — " Of those who are sent 
from hence, a great part are of the Scotch or Irish, who 
can get no employment at home, and enter into the 
service more out of necessity than choice. Some 
others are willing to go abroad, to retrieve either lost 
fortunes, or lost character."-]- I am sorry, from my own 
long and bitter experience, to be able to bear testimony 
to the accuracy of the Bishop's description, as one that 
will apply to colonial clergy, generally, even to the 
present day. The utter want of a missionary and 
apostolic spirit in the British churches prevents men of 
the right character and standing from going to the co- 
lonies as ministers of religion ; and the great majority 

* Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review for April, 1840. 
f Princeton Review, ubi supra. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 87 

of those who do go to these interesting and important 
fields are still such men as the Bishop describes. 

The Rev. Dr. Hodge observes, that " the early eccle- 
siastical history of Maryland is very much of a riddle." 
It is easy, however, to solve the riddle, simply by con- 
sidering what political party was uppermost in England 
at each particular period in the history of its changes. 
I have already stated that the colony of Maryland was 
established in the year 1634, by Lord Baltimore, a 
Roman Catholic nobleman, of the court of Charles the 
First, who designed it principally as a place of refuge 
and settlement for persons of the Romish communion. 
George Calvert, a brother of his lordship's/ accordingly 
carried out to the new settlement about two hundred 
Roman Catholics, at its commencement, and many 
others must have gone out to it thereafter, during the 
seventeenth century ; for, in the year 1694, there were 
six Roman Catholic priests resident in the colony. 
The Roman Catholics have always been exceedingly 
tolerant, when decidedly in the minority : Lord Balti- 
more accordingly established Christianity in Maryland 
agreeably to the old common law, as part and parcel of 
the law of the land, but without allowing pre-eminence 
to any particular sect.* In the year 1651, however, 
when the proprietary government was superseded by the 
authority of the English commonwealth, Papists and 
prelatists were unjustly excluded from this general to- 
leration, by an act of the colonial legislature ; although 
it does not appear that actual persecution was ever 
resorted to by the local authorities, either under that 
enactment, or after the re-establishment of the royal 
authority. For although it is stated, in reference to the 
latter of these periods, by the Rev. Dr. Hawks, an 
eminent Episcopalian minister of New York, the bitter- 
ness of whose feelings, however, is more easily dis- 

* Holmes' Annals. 



88 VIEW OP THE STATE OF RELIGION 

cernible than the elegance of his style, that " there was 
a sort of wandering pretenders to preaching, that came 
from New England and other places, which deluded 
not only the Protestant dissenters from our church, but 
many churchmen themselves, by their extemporary 
prayers and preachments, for which they were admitted 
by the people, and got money of them ;"* it does not 
appear that these pretenders — in whom we are, of 
course, to recognize Puritan ministers from New Eng- 
land, and Presbyterians from Scotland and the north of 
Ireland — were actually banished from Maryland, as 
they had been from Virginia, in the year 1643, and 
as Dr. Hawks plainly insinuates they ought to have 
been there also. Nay, it even appears that the 
preachments of these pretenders had made a deep and 
general impression upon the colony of Maryland ; 
for, when the Episcopal church was finally established 
in that colony, by act of the colonial legislature, under 
authority from England, in the year 1700,f that no- 
torious insult upon the common sense and Christian 
feelings of the colonial community was perpetrated in 
favour of considerably less than a twentieth part of the 
whole population. In short, grievous as the Protestant 
Episcopal Establishment has ever been to the great 
majority of the people of Ireland, it has never been so 
outrageously opposed to the voice of the public, even 
in that misgoverned country, as it long was in the co- 
lonies of North America. 

In the colony of William Penn, which, for a century 
and upwards, served as the principal inlet of the Scotch- 
Irish into the American colonies, there was no religious 
establishment — no pre-eminence of any particular de- 
nomination, from the first ; and as South Carolina was 
originally colonized, in great measure, by Presbyterians 

* Dr. Hawks, quoted by Dr. Hodge, Hist. Amer. Presb. Ch. 
f Holmes' Annals. 



PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION. 89 

from Scotland and French Huguenots, it might perhaps 
have been deemed somewhat unreasonable and unnatural, 
if it had not unfortunately been the uniform practice of 
the times, to force an Episcopal establishment upon the 
people in that colony. In the year 1704, however, 
the governor, having doubtless received private instruc- 
tions from England on the subject, and being sufficiently 
zealous himself to be very little scrupulous about the 
means of accomplishing so desirable an object, suc- 
ceeded, by some manoeuvring, in getting a majority of 
members elected to the legislature, whom he could 
count upon for any thing. By an assembly constituted 
in this manner, the Church of England was not only 
voted the established church of the colony of South 
Carolina, but every future member of the legislature 
was bound to belong to its communion and to take the 
sacrament, before taking his seat, as a proof of the fact. 
This obnoxious measure, by which the religious liberties 
of a whole colony were voted away, was carried, aftei 
much opposition, only by a majority of one. In con- 
sequence of the change which it effected in the eccle- 
siastical system of the colony, and of the emoluments 
which it held forth to conformists, two of the French 
Huguenot ministers passed over, with their whole con- 
gregations, into the communion of the Episcopal 
church ; being, probably, permitted to retain their own 
forms of worship while they continued to use the 
French language. The Episcopalians, however, were 
still a minority in the colony in the year 1710, not- 
withstanding this large addition to their communion ; 
for it appears from a letter written at Charleston, in 
that year, and quoted by Dr. Hodge, that they were 
still outnumbered by the Presbyterians and the Hugue- 
nots who maintained their attachment to the discipline 
of Geneva. 

It was thus to a system that not only identified the 
church with the world, but tended directly to eradicate 

i 2 



90 VIEW OF THE STATE OF RELIGION. 

from the hearts of men all the finer feelings of humanity, 
to make them regard the profession of religion with a 
mean and mercenary spirit, and consider its holiest or- 
dinances as a mere stepping-stone to political employ- 
ment, that the Episcopal church was originally indebted 
for its civil establishment in all the colonies of America. 
It was impossible that religion could ever flourish, in 
any country, under such a system ; and i,t was, there- 
fore, a happy event, even for the American Episcopal 
church, as well as for the American people, that en- 
sured its discontinuance. 



CHAPTER III. 



HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE VO- 
LUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 

It is universally believed in England, that the esta- 
blishment of the Voluntary System, or, in other words, 
the entire separation of Church and State, in America, 
was exclusively the work of the civil government of 
that country ; and that in the achievement of that 
work the American clergy were entirely passive, having 
no voice whatever in the matter. The whole credit of 
the measure is usually given to the celebrated President 
Jefferson, who, if I recollect aright, was, on some oc- 
casion, lauded in the highest terms by the " Edinburgh 
Review," for the admirable tact he was said to have ex- 
hibited in his management of the affair ; the clergy 
being represented, at the same time, as having been 
fairly outwitted by that wily politician. I confess I 
entertained such ideas myself, up to the period of my 
visiting America ; and although somewhat predisposed 
to regard the operation of the voluntary system in the 
United States with some degree of favour, as well from 
what I had heard and read on the subject as from my 
own experience of the operation and effects of a dif- 
ferent system in the British colonies, I had nevertheless 
a lurking suspicion as to the general tendency of the 
voluntary system in America, simply on account of the 
man with whom its introduction was thus associated in 



92 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

my own mincL For I could not help reasoning in this 
manner : if the establishment of the voluntary system 
in the United States was a mere device of Satan, to 
keep religion out of the country, as it is generally be- 
lieved to have been by the members of the existing re- 
ligious establishments of Great Britain, then Mr. Jef- 
ferson — an avowed infidel and an enemy to all religion 
— w r as certainly, of all men, the fittest to recommend 
such a measure, and to ensure its adoption. But if 
that measure was, in reality, the greatest benefit which 
was ever conferred either on the church of Christ or on 
any portion of the human race, as it is universally re- 
garded by the American Christians themselves, of all 
denominations, it seemed to me passing strange that 
such an agent as Mr. Jefferson should have been se- 
lected by Divine Providence to bring it into opera- 
tion. 

I happened, however, during my stay in America, to 
spend a day in the city of Richmond, in Virginia, on my 
return from Charleston, South Carolina, to New York ; 
and having had access to the library of the State-house 
in that city, as well as to other sources of information of 
unquestionable authority, I ascertained that the general 
impression in England, relative to the origin of the 
voluntary system in America, was unfounded : for, in- 
stead of having been entirely passive in regard to the 
establishment of that system, as the American clergy 
are supposed to have been, the fact is, that the original 
introduction of the voluntary system was wholly and 
solely the work of a numerous and influential portion 
of the American clergy themselves ; and so far from 
the separation of Church and State having been carried, 
with a high and revolutionary hand, over the influence 
and opposition of the sacerdotal order, through the mere 
political manoeuvring of Mr. Jefferson, the fact is, that 
the legislature of Virginia, in which that important mea- 
sure was originally carried, and through whose influence 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 93 

and example it was subsequently extended, gradually, over 
the whole Union, was itself borne into it unwillingly, by 
the clerical pressure from without. In short, the history 
of the establishment of the voluntary system in Ame- 
rica affords one of the most remarkable instances of en- 
lightened patriotism and generous self-denial to be 
found in the whole history of the church of Christ. It 
is not to be wondered at, however, that an event which 
took place in a remote and comparatively obscure pro- 
vince of a new-born republic, during a period of much 
political excitement, and at the close of a war equally 
disastrous and dishonourable to Great Britain, should 
hitherto have escaped the notice of English writers, and 
even of writers on America. But, as that event is not 
only extremely interesting in itself, but is likely to be 
attended with the most important results, through its 
future influence on a large portion of the human 
family, I trust I shall be excused for entering more into 
detail on the subject than, to some, at least, may seem 
at first sight absolutely necessary. With this view, I 
shall subjoin copies of the public documents of the 
period, relative to this important ecclesiastical revolu- 
tion, of which the originals are still extant, in the ar- 
chives of Virginia. 

I have already given some account of the ecclesi- 
astical establishment which had subsisted uninterrupt- 
edly in Virginia for upwards of a hundred and fifty 
years before the War of Independence ; and the reader 
will be able to form some idea of the general character 
of the Episcopal clergy of that province, during this 
long period, from the incidental notices on the subject 
with which we are furnished from various sources, and 
to which I have already referred : first, from the law of 
1631 ; secondly, from the correspondence of Sir Wil- 
liam Berkeley, in 1770, with the Lords of Plantations ; 
and, thirdly, from the Bishop of London's letter to Dr. 
Doddridge, in the year 1751. At the breaking out of 




94 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

the revolutionary war, the Virginian Episcopal clergy, 
generally, pursued a temporising policy, though for the 
most part, and for very obvious reasons, they were more 
than disaffected to the cause of the Americans. Some 
of them, indeed, embraced that cause so cordially, that, 
when they found there was little further prospect of 
adequate remuneration for their services as ministers of 
religion, they exchanged their gown and cassock for a 
military cloak and belt, and accepted commissions, 
under General Washington, in the American army. 

The reader will also have perceived, from the whole 
tenour of the loyal and patriotic address of the Synod 
of New York and Philadelphia to the Presbyterian 
churches under their care in the year 1775, that, while 
that body sympathized deeply with their oppressed 
countrymen, they were stedfast in their attachment to 
the British crown and connexion, till the national de- 
claration of independence, on the 4th of July, 1776, 
had apprised them of the fact, that there was thence- 
forth another " power, ordained of God," in the land, to 
which their allegiance and affections were accordingly 
due. The first body of clergy, of any denomination, 
in America, that openly recognised that act, and 
thereby identified themselves with the cause of free- 
dom and independence, was the Presbyterian clergy of 
Virginia. That body, which was then comparatively 
numerous and influential, constituting the large Pres- 
bytery of Hanover, addressed the Virginian House of 
Assembly on the subject, at their first meeting after 
the declaration ; and in the course of their memorial, 
after urging their own claim for entire religious free- 
dom, recommended the establishment of the voluntary 
system, and the complete separation of Church and 
State in Virginia. The following is a copy of the me- 
morial referred to : — 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 95 

"I. — Memorial presented in the year 1776. 
" To the Honourable the General Assembly of 

Virginia. The Memorial of the Presbytery of 

Hanover humbly represents : — 
" That your memorialists are governed by the same 
sentiments which have inspired the United States of 
America ; and are determined that nothing in our 
power and influence shall be wanting, to give success 
to their common cause. We would also represent, that 
dissenters from the Church of England, in this country, 
have ever been desirous to conduct themselves as 
peaceable members of the civil government ; for which 
reason they have hitherto submitted to various eccle- 
siastical burdens and restrictions that are inconsistent 
with equal liberty. But now, when the many and 
grievous oppressions of our mother country have laid 
this continent under the necessity of casting off the 
yoke of tyranny, and of forming independent govern- 
ments upon equitable and liberal foundations, we 
flatter ourselves that we shall be freed from all the in- 
cumbrances which a spirit of domination, prejudice, or 
bigotry, hath interwoven with most other political 
systems. This we are the more strongly encouraged 
to expect, by the Declaration of Rights, so universally 
applauded for that dignity, firmness, and precision with 
which it delineates and asserts the privileges of society, 
and the prerogatives of human nature ; and which we 
embrace as the Magna Charta of our commonwealth, 
that can never be violated without endangering the 
grand superstructure it was designed to sustain. There- 
fore, we rely upon this Declaration, as well as the 
justice of our Honourable Legislature, to secure us the 
free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of our 
consciences : and we should fall short in our duty to 
ourselves, and the many and numerous congregations 
under our care, were we, upon this occasion, to neglect 
laying before you a statement of the religious griev- 



96 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

ances under which we have hitherto laboured, that they 
may no longer be continued in our present form of go- 
vernment. 

" It is well known that, in the frontier counties, 
which are justly supposed to contain a fifth part of the 
inhabitants of Virginia, the dissenters have borne the 
heavy burdens of purchasing glebes, building churches, 
and supporting the established clergy, where there are 
very few Episcopalians, either to assist in bearing the 
expense, or to reap the advantage ; and that through- 
out the other parts of the country there are also many 
thousands of zealous friends and defenders of our State, 
who, besides the invidious and disadvantageous restric- 
tions to which they have been subjected, annually pay 
large taxes to support an establishment, from which 
their consciences and principles oblige them to dissent: 
all which are confessedly so many violations of their 
natural rights, and, in their consequences, a restraint 
upon freedom of inquiry and private judgment. 

" In this enlightened age, and in a land where all, 
of every denomination, are united in the most strenuous 
efforts to be free, we hope and expect that our repre- 
sentatives will cheerfully concur in removing every 
species of religious as well as civil bondage. Certain 
it is, that every argument for civil liberty gains addi- 
tional strength when applied to liberty in the concerns 
of religion ; and there is no argument in favour of 
establishing the Christian religion, but may be pleaded, 
with equal propriety, for establishing the tenets of Mo- 
hammed by those who believe the Alcoran : or, if this 
be not true, it is at least impossible for the magistrate 
to adjudge the right of preference among the various 
sects that profess the Christian faith, without erecting a 
chain of infallibility, which would lead us back to the 
Church of Rome. 

" We beg leave, further, to represent, that religious 
establishments are highly injurious to the temporal 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 97 

interests of any community. Without insisting upon 
the ambition, and the arbitrary practices of those who 
are favoured by government ; or the intriguing, sedi- 
tious spirit, which is commonly excited by this, as well 
as by every other kind of oppression ; such establish- 
ments greatly retard population, and consequently the 
progress of arts, sciences, and manufactures : witness the 
rapid growth and improvements of the northern provinces, 
compared with this. No one can deny that the more 
early settlement, and the many superior advantages of 
our country, would have invited multitudes of artificers, 
mechanics, and other useful members of society, to fix 
their habitation among us, who have either remained in 
their place of nativity, or preferred worse civil govern- 
ments, and a more barren soil, where they might enjoy 
the rights of conscience more fully than they had a 
prospect of doing in this. From which we infer, that 
Virginia might have now been the capital of x\merica, 
and a match for the British arms, without depending on 
others for the necessaries of war, had it not been pre- 
vented by her religious establishment. 

" Neither can it be made appear that the gospel 
needs any such civil aid. We rather conceive that, 
when our blessed Saviour declares his kingdom is not of 
this world, he renounces all dependence upon State 
power ; and, as his weapons are spiritual, and were 
only designed to have influence on the judgment and 
heart of man, we are persuaded that, if mankind were 
left in the quiet possession of their inalienable religious 
privileges, Christianity, as in the days of the apostles, 
would continue to prevail and flourish in the greatest 
purity, by its own native excellences, and under the 
all-disposing providence of God. 

" We would also humbly represent, that the only 
proper objects of civil government are the happiness 
and protection of men in the present state of existence ; 
the security of the life, liberty, and property of the 




98 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

citizens ; and to restrain the vicious and encourage the 
virtuous by wholesome laws, equally extending to 
every individual. But that the duty which we owe our 
Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be 
directed by reason and conviction, and is nowhere cog- 
nizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge. 

" Therefore, we ask no ecclesiastical establishment for 
ourselves; neither can we approve of them when granted 
to others. This, indeed, would be giving exclusive or 
separate emoluments or privileges to one set (or sect) 
of men, without any special public services, to the 
common reproach and injury of every other deno- 
mination. And, for the reasons recited, we are induced 
earnestly to entreat that all laws now in force in this 
commonwealth, which countenance religious domina- 
tion, may be speedily repealed ; that all, of every re- 
ligious sect, may be protected in the full exercise of 
their several modes of worship ; and exempted from all 
taxes for the support of any church whatsoever, further 
than what may be agreeable to their own private 
choice, or voluntary obligation. This being done, all 
partial and invidious distinctions will be abolished, to 
the great honour and interest of the State ; and every 
one be left to stand or fall according to merit ; which 
can never be the case, so long as any one denomination 
is established in preference to others. 

■* That the great Sovereign of the universe may in- 
spire you with unanimity, wisdom, and resolution ; and 
bring you to a just determination on all the important 
concerns before you, is the fervent prayer of your me- 
morialists. 

" Signed, by order of the Presbytery, 
" John Todd, Moderator. 
" Caleb Wallace, Presb. Clerk." 

In the month of October, 1776, and shortly after the 
presentation of this memorial, the legislature of Virginia 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 99 

passed a law, in conformity with the petition which it 
embodied, exempting all non-conformists from contri- 
butions of any kind for the support of the Episcopal or 
established church. At the same time, the policy of 
a general assessment for the support of religion, on 
such principles as would afford that support equally to 
all denominations, was much and earnestly discussed in 
the legislature ; and the subject was at length referred 
by the General Assembly to the people, for the purpose 
of ascertaining their sentiments in regard to it. In con- 
sequence of this reference, the following memorial was 
presented to the Assembly, by the Presbytery of Hanover, 
in the year 1777. The Rev. Samuel S. Smith and the 
Rev. David Rice were the committee who framed it. 

" II. — To the Honourable the General Assembly 
of Virginia ; The Memorial of the Presbytery 
of Hanover humbly represents, 
" That your memorialists, and the religious denomi- 
nation with which we are connected, are most sincerely 
attached to the common interests of the American 
States ; and are determined that our most fervent 
prayers and strenuous endeavours shall ever be united 
with the exertions of our fellow-subjects,* to repel the 
assaults of tyranny, and to maintain our common rights. 
In our former memorial, we have expressed our hearty 
approbation of the Declaration of Rights, which has 
been made and adopted as the basis of the laws and 
government of this State ; and now we take the oppor- 
tunity of testifying that nothing has inspired us with 
greater confidence in our legislature, than the late Act 
of Assembly declaring that equal liberty, as well re- 
ligious as civil, shall be universally extended to the 
good people of this country ; and that all the oppres- 
sive acts of parliament respecting religion, which have 

* It seems the word citizens was not yet coined. 



100 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

been formerly enacted in the mother country, shall 
henceforth be of no validity or force in this common- 
wealth : as also exempting dissenters from all levies, 
taxes, and impositions, whatsoever, towards supporting 
the Church of England as it now is or hereafter may be 
established. We would therefore have given our Ho- 
nourable Legislature no further trouble on this subject ; 
but we are sorry to find that there yet remains a variety 
of opinions touching the propriety of a general assess- 
ment, or whether every religious society shall be left to 
voluntary contributions, for the maintenance of the 
ministers of the gospel who are of different persuasions. 
As this matter is deferred by our legislature to the dis- 
cussion and final determination of a future assembly, 
when the opinion of the country, in general, shall be 
better known ; we think it our indispensable duty again 
to repeat a part of the prayer of our former memorial : 
* That dissenters of every denomination may be ex- 
empted from all taxes for the support of any church 
whatsoever, further than what may be agreeable to the 
private choice or voluntary obligation of every indi- 
vidual ; while the civil magistrates no otherwise inter- 
fere than to protect them all in the full and free exercise 
of their different modes of worship.' We there repre- 
sented, as the principal reasons upon which this request 
was founded, that the only proper objects of civil go- 
vernments are, the happiness and protection of men in 
the present state of existence ; the security of the life, 
liberty, and property of the citizens ; and to restrain 
the vicious and encourage the virtuous by wholesome 
laws, equally extending to every individual ; and that 
the duty which we owe our Creator, and the manner of 
discharging it, can only be directed by reason and con- 
viction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal 
of the universal Judge. 

" To illustrate and confirm these assertions, we beg 
leave to observe, that to judge for ourselves, and to en- 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 101 

gage in the exercise of religion agreeably to the dictates 
of our own consciences, is an inalienable right, which, 
upon the principles on which the gospel was first pro- 
pagated, and the reformation from Popery carried on, 
can never be transferred to another. Neither does the 
church of Christ stand in need of a general assessment 
for its support ; and most certain we are, that it would 
be no advantage, but an injury to the society to which 
we belong ; and as every good Christian believes that 
Christ has ordained a complete system of laws for the 
government of his kingdom, so we are persuaded that, 
by his providence, he will support it to its final con- 
summation. In the fixed belief of this principle, that 
the kingdom of Christ, and the concerns of religion, are 
beyond the limits of civil control, we should act a dis- 
honest, inconsistent part, were we to receive any emo- 
luments from human establishments, for the support of 
the gospel. 

" These things being considered, we hope we shall be 
excused for remonstrating against a general assessment 
for any religious purpose. As the maxims have long 
been approved, that every servant is to obey his master, 
and that the hireling is accountable for his conduct to 
him from whom he receives his wages ; in like manner, 
if the legislature has any rightful authority over the 
ministers of the gospel in the exercise of their sacred 
office, and if it is their duty to levy a maintenance for 
them as such, then it will follow that they may revive 
the old establishment in its former extent, or ordain a 
new one for any sect they may think proper ; they are 
invested with a power not only to determine, but it is 
incumbent on them to declare who shall preach, what 
they shall preach, to whom, when, and in what places 
they shall preach ; or to impose any regulations and re- 
strictions upon religious societies that they may judge 
expedient. These consequences are so plain as not to 
be denied ; and they are so entirely subversive of reli- 

k2 



102 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 






gious liberty, that if they should take place in Virginia, 
we should be reduced to the melancholy necessity of 
saying with the apostles in like cases, ' Judge ye whe- 
ther it is best to obey God or man/ and also of acting 
as they acted. 

" Therefore, as it is contrary to our principles and in- 
terest, and, as we think, subversive of religious liberty, 
we do again most earnestly entreat that our legislature 
would never extend any assessment for religious pur- 
poses to us, or to the congregations under our care. 
And your memorialists, as in duty bound, shall ever pray 
for, and demean themselves as peaceable subjects of civil 
government. 

" Signed, by order of the Presbytery, 

" Richard Sankey, Moderator. 

" Timber Ridge, April 25th, 1777." 

During the war of independence, of which Virginia 
was for several years one of the principal theatres, the 
business of legislation for the internal government of the 
country was necessarily interrupted. On the successful 
termination of the war, however, the Presbytery of Han- 
over immediately renewed their agitation for the esta- 
blishment of a system of complete religious liberty, 
and entire separation of Church and State. The Pres- 
byterians, and especially their ministers, had been par- 
ticularly obnoxious to the Royalist forces during the 
war, as it was well known that they had uniformly made 
common cause with the people after the Declaration of 
Independence — stimulating them to renewed sacrifices 
and exertions in the midst of their frequent reverses, as 
well by their disinterested counsels, as by their own 
patient endurance of sufferings and privations. The 
Episcopal clergy, on the contrary, were generally 
Royalists; for as they well knew, on the one hand, that 
the maintenance of the Royal authority was the only 
security they had for the preservation of their benefices, 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 103 

they were conscious, on the other, that they had no hold 
on the affections of the people, and they therefore hated 
their cause, and adopted every means which they could 
employ with safety to ensure their defeat. Naturally 
desirous, however, of standing well with the party that 
should eventually be uppermost, they adopted, for the 
most part, a temporizing policy, which, in such circum- 
stances as were then experienced, could not fail to give 
great offence. Evidences of this state of feeling will 
be found in the following memorial, which was presented 
to the legislature of Virginia immediately after the 
peace. It was the joint production of two able minis- 
ters of the period, the Rev. Messrs. Smith and Waddell. 

" III, — Memorial of the Presbytery of Hanover, in 

May, 1784. 
" To the Honourable the Speaker and House of 

Delegates of Virginia ; 
" The united clergy of the Presbyterian Church in 
Virginia, assembled in Presbytery, request your atten- 
tion to the following representation. In the late arduous 
struggle for every thing dear to us, a desire of perfect 
liberty and political equality animated every class of 
citizens. An entire and everlasting freedom from every 
species of ecclesiastical domination, a full and perman- 
ent security of the inalienable rights of conscience and 
private judgment, and an equal share of the protection 
and favour of government to all denominations of Chris- 
tians, were particular objects of our expectation and ir- 
refragable claim. The happy revolution effected by the 
virtuous exertions of our countrymen of various opinions 
in religion, was a favourable opportunity of obtaining 
these desirable objects without faction, contention, or 
complaint. All ranks of men, almost, felt the claims of 
justice, when the rod of oppression had scourged them 
into sensibility, and the powerful band of common dan- 
ger had cordially united them together against civil en- 
croachments. The members, therefore, of every reli- 



104 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

gious society had a right to expect, and most of them 
did expect, that former invidious and exclusive distinc- 
tions, preferences, and emoluments, conferred by the 
State on any one sect above others, would have been 
wholly removed. They justly supposed that any par- 
tiality of this kind, any particular and illicit connexion 
or commerce between the State and one description of 
Christians more than another, on account of peculiar 
opinions in religion, or in any thing else, would be un- 
worthy of the representatives of a people perfectly free, 
and an infringement of that religious liberty which en- 
hances the value of other privileges in a state of society. 

" We, therefore, and the numerous body of citizens 
in our communion, as well as in many others, are justly 
dissatisfied and uneasy, that our expectations from the 
legislature have not been answered in these important 
respects. We regret that the prejudices of education, 
the influence of partial custom, and habits of thinking 
confirmed by these, have too much confounded the dis- 
tinction between matters purely religious and the objects 
of human legislation, and have occasioned jealousy and 
dissatisfaction by injurious inequalities respecting things 
which are connected with religious opinion, towards dif- 
ferent sects of Christians. That this uneasiness may 
not appear to be entertained without ground, we would 
wish to state the following unquestionable facts for the 
consideration of the House of Delegates. 

" The security of our religious rights upon equal and 
impartial ground, instead of being made a fundamental 
part of our constitution, as it ought to have been, is left 
to the precarious fate of common law. A matter of 
general and essential concern to the people is committed 
to the hazard of the prevailing opinion of a majority of 
the Assembly at its different sessions. In consequence 
of this, the Episcopal church was virtually regarded as 
the constitutional church, the church of the State, at 
the Revolution ; and was left, by the framers of our 
present government, in that station of unjust pre-emi- 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 105 

nence which she had formerly acquired under the smiles 
of royal favour. And even when the late oppressive 
establishment of that church was at length acknow- 
ledged an unreasonable hardship, by the Assembly in 
1776, a superiority and distinction in name was still 
retained, and it was expressly styled the Established 
Church, as before, which title was continued as late as 
the year 1778, and never formally disclaimed; our 
common danger at that time not permitting that oppo- 
sition to the injustice of such distinctions which it 
required and deserved. 

" But * a seat on the right hand of temporal glory as 
the established mother church,' was not the only in- 
equality then countenanced, and still subsisting, of 
which we now have reason to regret and complain. 
Substantial advantages were also confirmed and secured 
to her, by a partial and inequitable decree of govern- 
ment. We hoped the time past would have sufficed 
for the enjoyment of those emoluments, which that 
church long possessed without control, by the abridg- 
ment of the equal privileges of others, and the aid of 
their property wrested from them by the hand of usurp- 
ation ; but we were deceived. An estate, computed to 
be worth several hundred thousand pounds, in churches, 
glebes, &c, derived from the pockets of all religious 
societies, was exclusively and unjustly appropriated to 
the benefit of one, without compensation or restitu- 
tion to the rest, who in many places were a large ma- 
jority of the inhabitants. 

" Nor is this the whole of the injustice we have felt 
in matters connected with religious opinion. The Epis- 
copal church is actually incorporated, and known in 
law as a body, so that it can receive and possess pro- 
perty for ecclesiastical purposes, without trouble or risk 
in securing it, while other Christian communities are 
obliged to trust to the precarious fidelity of trustees 
chosen for the purpose. The Episcopal clergy are 



106 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

considered as having a right, ex officio, to celebrate 
marriages throughout the State, while unnecessary hard- 
ships and restrictions are imposed upon other clergy- 
men, in the law relating to that subject, passed in 
1780, which confines their exercise of that function to 
those counties where they receive a special license from 
the court by recommendation, for recording which they 
are charged with certain fees by the clerk ; and which 
exposes them to a heavy fine for delay in returning 
certificates of marriage to the office. 

" The vestries of the different parishes, a remnant of 
hierarchical domination, have a right by law to levy 
money from the people of all denominations, for certain 
purposes ; and yet these vestrymen are exclusively 
required by law to be members of the Episcopal 
church, and to subscribe a conformity to its doc- 
trines and discipline, as professed and practised in 
England. Such preferences, distinctions, and advan- 
tages, granted by the legislature exclusively to one 
sect of Christians, are regarded by a great number of 
your constituents as glaringly unjust and dangerous. 
Their continuance so long in a republic, without anim- 
adversion or correction by the Assembly, affords just 
ground for alarm and complaint to a people who feel 
themselves, by the favour of Providence, happily free ; 
who are conscious of having deserved as well from the 
State as those who are most favoured ; who have an 
undoubted right to think themselves as orthodox in 
opinion, upon every subject, as others ; and whose pri- 
vileges are as dear to them. Such partiality to any 
system of religious opinion, whatever, is inconsistent 
with the intention and proper object of well-directed 
government, and obliges men of reflection to consider 
the legislature which indulges it as a party in religious 
differences, instead of the common guardian and equal 
protector of every class of citizens in their religious as 
well as civil rights. We have hitherto restrained our 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 107 

complaints from reaching our representatives, that we 
might not be thought to take advantages from times of 
confusion, or critical situations of government in an un- 
settled state of convulsion and war, to obtain what is 
our clear and incontestable right. 

" But, as the happy restoration of peace affords 
leisure for reflection, we wish to state our sense of the 
objects of this memorial to your Honourable House upon 
the present occasion ; that it may serve to remind you 
of what might be unnoticed in a multitude of business, 
and remain as a remonstrance against future encroach- 
ments from any quarter. That uncommon liberality of 
sentiment, which seems daily to gain ground in this 
enlightened period, encourages us to hope from your 
wisdom and integrity, gentlemen, a redress of every 
grievance and remedy of every abuse : our invaluable 
privileges have been purchased by the common blood 
and treasure of our countrymen of different names and 
opinions, and therefore ought to be secured in full and 
perfect equality to them all. We are willing to allow 
a full share of credit to our fellow-citizens, however dis- 
tinguished in name from us, for their spirited exertions 
in our arduous struggle for liberty ; we would not wish 
to charge any of them, either ministers or people, with 
open disaffection to the common cause of America, or 
with crafty dissimulation or indecision, till the issue of 
the war was certain, so as to oppose their obtaining 
equal privileges in religion ; but we will resolutely en- 
gage against any monopoly of the honours and rewards 
of government by any one sect of Christians more than 
the rest ; for we shun not a comparison with any of 
our brethren, for our efforts in the cause of our country, 
and assisting to establish her liberties, and therefore 
esteem it unreasonable that any of them should reap 
superior advantages for, at most, but equal merit. We 
expect from the representatives of a free people, that 
all partiality and prejudice on any account whatever 



108 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

will be laid aside, and that "the happiness of the citizens 
at large will be secured upon the broad basis of perfect 
political equality. This will engage confidence in govern- 
ment, and unsuspicious affection towards our fellow- 
citizens. We hope that the legislature will adopt some 
measures to remove present inequality, and resist any 
attempts, either at their present session or hereafter, to 
continue those which we now complain of. Thus, by 
preserving a proper regard to every religious denomina- 
tion, as the common protectors of piety and virtue, you 
will remove every real ground of contention, and allay 
every jealous commotion on the score of religion. The 
citizens of Virginia will feel themselves free, unsus- 
picious, and happy in this respect. Strangers will be 
encouraged to share our freedom and felicity ; and, 
when civil and religious liberty go hand in hand, our 
late posterity will bless the wisdom and virtue of their 
fathers. We have the satisfaction to assure you that 
we are steady well-wishers to the State, and your 
humble servants, 

" The Presbytery of Hanover." 

In the year 1784, the Act, alluded to in the pre- 
ceding memorial, was passed by the legislature of Vir- 
ginia, for the incorporation of the Episcopal church in 
that State ; and, in consequence of that memorial, a 
proposal was made, by certain influential members of 
the House of Assembly, to incorporate the Presbyterian 
church also ; the friends of the measure proposing that 
the charter of incorporation should be given to the 
clergy, independently of their people. 

" About the same time," observes the Rev. Dr. Rice,* 
" a general assessment for the support of religion was 
proposed, and was advocated by some of the most able 

* Illustrations of the Character of the Presbyterian Church in 
Virginia, by the Rev. John Holt Rice, D.D., Minister of the First 
Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia ; Philadelphia, 1816. 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 109 

and popular men in Virginia ; and, among others, by 
Patrick Henry.* The general belief was, that the 
measure would be carried in spite of all opposition. 
Under this impression, the Presbytery resolved to at- 
tempt, by remonstrances to the legislature, so to modify 
the plan as to make it as harmless as possible. With 
this view, they presented the following memorial to the 
Assembly at its next meeting." 

In addition to what Dr. Rice has stated, it may be 
proper to observe, that while matters were in this critical 
situation, Patrick Henry, who was then one of the most 
influential men in America, had gained over to his views, 
on the subject of a general assessment for the support 
of religion, the Rev. John B. Smith, one of the ablest 
and most influential of the Presbyterian clergy. This, 
in conjunction with what Dr. R. has stated above, will 
account for the fact, that while the memorial referred to 
remonstrates against the proposal to incorporate the 
Presbyterian clergy, it presents a much feebler opposi- 
tion to the principle of an assessment, which the Pres- 
bytery at this juncture appear to have altogether de* 
spaired of opposing successfully. 

* Patrick Henry, Esq., afterwards Governor of the State, was 
then a leading member of the House of Assembly in Virginia. 
Some time previous to the Declaration of Independence, when the 
measures of the British government, in taxing the American people 
without their consent, were under discussion in the Virginia House 
of Assembly, Patrick Henry exclaimed, in the course of a long and 
animated speech, " Caesar had his Brutus ; Charles the First had his 

Cromwell; and George the Third" Mr. Henry then paused 

for a moment, and cries of " Treason ! treason!" were heard from 
various parts of the House. When these had ceased, and the feel- 
ings of all present were wound up to the highest pitch, in expecta- 
tion of the announcement of some really treasonable sentiment, Mr. 
H. adroitly concluded his sentence by adding, — M and George the 
Third should profit by their example M 



110 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 



IV. — Memorial. 






" The Presbytery of Hanover to the Assembly, in 
October, 1784. To the Honourable the 
Speaker and House of Delegates of Virginia. 
u Gentlemen, 

" The united clergy of the Presbyterian Church of 
Virginia, assembled in Presbytery, beg leave again to 
address your Honourable House upon a few important 
subjects in which we find ourselves interested as citi- 
zens of this State. 

" The freedom we possess is so rich a blessing, and 
the purchase of it has been so high, that we would ever 
wish to cherish a spirit of vigilant attention to it in 
every circumstance of possible danger. We are anxious 
to retain a full share of all the privileges which our 
happy revolution affords, and cannot but feel alarmed 
at the continued existence of any infringement upon 
them, or even any indirect attempt tending to this. 
Impressed with this idea, as men whose rights are sacred 
and dear to them ought to be, we are obliged to ex- 
press our sensibility upon the present occasion ; and we 
naturally direct our appeal to you, gentlemen, as the 
public guardians of your country's happiness and liberty, 
who are influenced, we hope, by that wisdom and jus- 
tice which your high station requires. Conscious of 
the rectitude of our intentions, and the strength of our 
claims, we wish to speak our sentiments freely upon 
these occasions, but at the same time with all that re- 
spectful regard which becomes us, when addressing the 
Representatives of a great and virtuous people. It is 
with pain that we find ourselves obliged to renew our 
complaints upon the subjects stated in our memorial 
last spring. We deeply regret that such obvious griev- 
ances should exist unredressed in a republic, whose end 
ought to be the happiness of all the citizens. We pre- 
sumed that immediate redress would have succeeded a 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. Ill 

clear and just representation of them, as we expect that 
it is always the desire of our Representatives to remove 
real grounds of uneasiness, and allay jealous commo- 
tions among the people. But as the objects of the 
memorial, though very important in their nature, and 
more so in their probable consequences, have not yet 
been obtained, we request that the House of Delegates 
would be pleased to recollect what we had the honour 
to state to them in that paper at their last session ; to 
resume the subject in their present deliberation ; and 
to give it that weight which its importance deserves. 
The uneasiness which we feel from the continuance of 
the grievances just referred to, is increased under the 
prospect of an addition to them by certain exceptionable 
measures said to be proposed to the legislature. We 
have understood that a comprehensive incorporating act 
has been, and is at present, in agitation, whereby minis- 
ters of the gospel, as such, of certain descriptions, shall 
have legal advantages which are not proposed to be 
extended to the people at large of any denomination. 
A proposition has been made by some gentlemen in 
the House of Delegates, we are told, to extend the 
grace to us amongst others, in our professional capacity. 
If this be so, we are bound to acknowledge with grati- 
tude our obligations to such gentlemen for their in- 
clination to favour us with the sanction of public 
authority in the discharge of our duty. But as the 
scheme of incorporating clergymen, independently of the 
religious communities to which they belong, is inconsistent 
with our ideas of propriety, we request the liberty of 
declining any such solitary honour should it be again 
proposed. To form clergymen into a distinct order in 
the community, and especially where it would be pos- 
sible for them to have the principal direction of a con- 
siderable public estate by such incorporation, has a 
tendency to render them independent at length of the 
churches whose ministers they are ; and this has been 



112 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

too often found by experience to produce ignorance, 
immorality, and neglect of the duties of their station. 

" Besides, if clergymen were to be erected by the 
State into a distinct political body, detached from the rest 
of the citizens, with the express design of ' enabling 
them to direct spiritual matters,' which we all possess the 
right to do without such formality, it would naturally 
tend to introduce that antiquated and absurd system, 
in which the civil government is owned, in effect, to be 
the fountain-head of spiritual influences to the church. 
It would establish an immediate, a peculiar — and, for 
that very reason, in our opinion, illicit — connexion be- 
tween government and such as were thus distinguished. 
The legislature in that case would be the head of a 
religious party, and its independent members would be 
entitled to all decent reciprocity, to a becoming, pater- 
nal and fostering care. This, we suppose, would be 
giving a preference, and creating a distinction between 
citizens equally good, on account of something entirely 
foreign from civil merit, which would be a source of 
endless jealousies, and inadmissible in a republic, or in 
any other well directed government. The principle, 
too, which this system aims to establish, is both false 
and dangerous to religion ; and we take this opportu- 
nity to remonstrate and protest against it. The real 
ministers of true religion derive their authority to act in 
the duties of their profession from a higher source than 
any legislature on earth, however respectable. Their 
office relates to the care of the soul, and preparing it 
for a future state of existence, and their administrations 
are, or ought to be, of a spiritual nature, suited to this 
momentous concern. And it is plain, from the very 
nature of the case, that they should neither expect nor 
receive from government any permission or direction in 
this respect. We hope, therefore, that the House of 
Delegates shares so large a portion of that philosophic 
and liberal discernment which prevails in America at 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 113 

present, as to see this matter in its proper light, and that 
they will understand too well the nature of their duty, 
as the equal and common guardians of the chartered 
rights of all the citizens, to permit a connexion of the 
kind we have just now mentioned, to subsist between 
them and the instructors of any religious denomination 
in the State. The interference of government in reli- 
gion cannot be indifferent to us, and as it will probably 
come under consideration at the present session of the 
Assembly, we request the attention of the Honourable 
House to our sentiments upon this head. 

" We conceive that human legislation ought to have 
human affairs alone for its concern. Legislators in free 
States possess delegated authority for the good of the 
community at large in its political or civil capacity. 

" The existence, preservation, and happiness of so- 
ciety should be their only object ; and to this their 
public cares should be confined. Whatever is not ma- 
terially connected with this, lies not within their pro- 
vince as statesmen. The thoughts, the intentions, the 
faith, and the consciences of men, with their modes of 
worship, lie beyond their reach, and are to be referred 
to a higher and more penetrating tribunal. Their in- 
ternal and spiritual matters cannot be measured by hu- 
man rules, nor be amenable to human laws. It is the 
duty of every man for himself to take care of his immor- 
tal interests in a future state, where we are to account 
for our conduct as individuals ; and it is by no means 
the business of a legislature to attend to this, for there 
Governments and States, as collective bodies, shall no 
more be known. 

" Religion, therefore, as a spiritual system, and its 
ministers, in a professional capacity, ought not to be 
under the direction of the State. 

" Neither is it necessary to their existence that they 
should be publicly supported by a legal provision for 
the purpose, as tried experience hath often shown ; al- 

L 2 




114 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT (F 

though it is absolutely necessary to the existence and 
welfare of every political combination of men in society 
to have the support of religion and its solemn institu- 
tions, as affecting the conduct of rational beings more 
than human laws can possibly do. On this account it 
is wise policy in legislators to seek its alliance, and 
solicit its aid in a civil view, because of its happy influ- 
ence upon the morality of its citizens, and its tendency 
to preserve the veneration of an oath, or an appeal to 
Heaven, which is the cement of the social union. It is 
upon this principle alone, in our opinion, that a legisla- 
tive body has a right to interfere in religion at all ; and 
of consequence we suppose, that this, interference ought 
only to extend to the preserving of the public worship 
of the Deity, and the supporting of institutions for in- 
culcating the great fundamental principles of all religion, 
without which society could not easily exist. Should it 
be thought necessary at present for the Assembly to 
exert this right of supporting religion in general, by an 
assessment on ail the people, we would wish it to be 
done on the most liberal plan. A general assessment 
of the kind we have heard proposed is an object of such 
consequence, that it excites much anxious speculation 
amongst your constituents. 

" We therefore earnestly pray that nothing may be 
done in the case inconsistent with the proper objects of 
human legislation or the Declaration of Rights as pub- 
lished at the Revolution. We hope that the assessment 
will not be proposed under the idea of supporting reli- 
gion as a spiritual system, relating to the care of the 
soul and preparing it for its future destiny. We hope 
that no attempt will be made to point out articles of 
faith that are not essential to the peace of society ; or to 
settle modes of worship ; or to interfere in the internal 
government of religious communities ; or to render the 
ministers of religion independent of the will of the people 
whom they serve. We expect from our Representatives 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 115 

that careful attention to the political equality of all the 
citizens which a republic ought ever to cherish ; and 
that no scheme of an assessment will be encouraged 
which will violate the happy privilege we now enjoy, of 
thinking for ourselves in all cases where conscience is 
concerned. 

" We request the candid indulgence of the Honour- 
able House to the present address ; and their most 
favourable construction of the motives which induce us 
to obtrude ourselves into public notice. We are urged 
by a sense of duty — we feel ourselves impressed with 
the importance of the present crisis — we have expressed 
ourselves in the plain language of freemen, upon the in- 
teresting subjects that called for animadversion — and 
we hope to stand excused with you, gentlemen, for the 
manner in which it is executed, as well as for the part 
we take in the public interests of the community. In 
the present important moment, we conceived it criminal 
to be silent ; and have, therefore, attempted to dis- 
charge a duty which we owe to our religion as Chris- 
tians ; to ourselves as freemen ; and to our posterity, 
who ought to receive from us a precious birthright of 
perfect freedom and political equality. 

" That you may enjoy the direction of Heaven in 
your present deliberations, and possess in a high degree 
the spirit of your exalted station, is the prayer of your 
sincere well-wishers, 

" The Presbytery of Hanover," 

So important was the crisis at which this document 
was received for the establishment of entire religious 
liberty in all time coming in America, and so successful 
had the advocates of a general assessment been in re- 
commending that measure to the legislature, that " A 
Bill to provide for the support of Religion," on the 
principle of such an assessment, had actually been read 
a second time, and was engrossed for the third reading 



116 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 



eof 



when the memorial was presented. In consequence 
that memorial, however, the third reading of the bill 
was postponed, with a view to the further consideration 
of the measure. " This," observes Dr. Rice, " gave an 
opportunity for such an expression of public sentiment 
as completely decided the matter." A petition to the 
legislature was drawn up by the Rev. John B. Smith, 
the writer of the preceding memorial, remonstrating 
against the principle of an assessment for the support of 
religion, and soliciting the establishment of complete 
religious liberty, and the entire separation of Church 
and State. This petition was signed by not fewer than 
ten thousand Virginians ; the original document and 
the preceding memorial being both in existence still, in 
the hand-writing of Mr. Smith, in the office of the 
Clerk of the House of Delegates of Virginia. 

In the month of May of the following year, the Pres- 
bytery of Hanover held a meeting at a place called 
Bethel ; and in the records of that meeting is to be 
found the following minute : — 

"Bethel, May 19, 1785. 
" A petition was presented to the Presbytery from 
the Session of Augusta congregation, requesting an ex- 
planation of the word liberal, as used in the Presbytery's 
memorial of last fall : as also of the motives and end of 
the Presbytery in sending it to the Assembly. Messrs. 
Hoge and Carrick are appointed a Committee to pre- 
pare an answer to the above petition, and report to the 
Presbytery." 

The part of the memorial to which this petition re- 
ferred was the following : " Should it be thought neces- 
sary at present for the Assembly to exert their right of 
supporting religion in general, by an assessment on all 
the people, we would wish it to be done on the most 
liberal plan." The expression was certainly ambiguous, 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 117 

as the word liberal might refer to the amount of assess- 
ment to be raised, and of stipends or salaries to be paid, 
as well as to the churches or denominations eligible to 
receive it. It is evident, however, from the subsequent 
proceedings of the meeting, that the petitioners merely 
desired to bring the whole subject of an assessment 
once more before the Presbytery ; for immediately after 
the minute above quoted, the following entry appears 
upon the records of the Presbytery : 

" On motion, the opinion of Presbytery was taken as 
to ' Whether they do approve of any kind of an assess- 
ment by the General Assembly for the support of reli- 
gion ? ' Presbytery are unanimously against such a 
measure" 

" It has been supposed," observes Dr. Rice, " from 
the tenor of the latter part of the preceding memorial, 
that the Presbytery of Hanover was in favour of an as- 
sessment of some kind ; when, in fact, it was only their 
purpose, as before stated, to render a measure, which 
they thought inevitable, as powerless as possible. If 
any doubt remains yet in the minds of any one, it will 
be completely dissipated by the following extract, which 
in the records of the Presbytery immediately succeeds 
the preceding one : 

" On motion, the opinion of Presbytery and likewise 
of several members of different congregations present, 
was taken, ' Whether a general convention of the Pres- 
byterian body was expedient, in our present circum- 
stances ?' It was unanimously agreed to, and an 
invitation was accordingly signed by the ministers and 
several private members of the Presbyterian Church to 
the whole body, to send representatives to a Convention 
proposed to be held at Bethel, on the 1 Oth day of next 
August." 

A convention of the Presbyterian Church in Vir- 
ginia was held, accordingly, at the time and place ap- 
pointed ; at which, among other proceedings, the follow- 
ing memorial was adopted, to be presented to the Gene- 



118 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 






ral Assembly, or House of Delegates, at its next meet- 
ing. It was given in charge for that purpose to the 
Rev. John B. Smith, one of the ablest ministers of the 
American Presbyterian Church at the time, who not 
only presented it in person, but was heard, in support 
of it, for three successive days, at the bar of the House. 

V. — " To the Honourable the General Assembly 
of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

" The Ministers and Lay Representatives of the 
Presbyterian Church in Virginia, assembled in Conven- 
tion, beg leave to address you. 

" As citizens of this State, not so by accident, but 
choice, and having willingly conformed to the system 
of civil policy adopted for our government, and defend- 
ed it with the foremost at the risk of every thing dear 
to us, we feel ourselves deeply interested in all the mea- 
sures of the legislature. 

" When the late happy Revolution secured to us an 
exemption from British control, we hoped that the 
gloom of injustice and usurpation would have been for 
ever dispelled by the cheering rays of liberty and inde- 
pendence. This inspired our hearts with resolution in 
the most distressful scenes of adversity, and nerved 
our arm, in the day of battle. But our hopes have since 
been overcast with apprehension, when we found how 
slowly and unwillingly ancient distinctions among the 
citizens, on account of religious opinions, were removed 
by the legislature. For, although the glaring partiality 
of obliging all denominations to support the one which 
had been the favourite of government was pretty early 
withdrawn, yet an evident predilection in favour of that 
church still subsisted in the Acts of the Assembly. Pe- 
culiar distinctions and the honour of an important name 
were still continued ; and these are considered as equally 
partial and injurious with the ancient emoluments. Our 
apprehensions on account of the continuance of these, 
which could have no other effect than to produce jea- 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 119 

lous animosities, and unnecessary contentions among 
different parties, were increased when we found that 
they were tenaciously adhered to by government, not- 
withstanding the remonstrances of several Christian so- 
cieties. To increase the evil, a manifest disposition 
has been shown by the State, to consider itself as pos- 
sessed of supremacy in spirituals, as well as temporals ; 
and our fears have been realized in certain proceedings 
of the General Assembly at their last session. The 
engrossed bill for establishing a provision for the teachers 
of the Christian religion, and the act for incorporating 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, so far as it secures to 
that church, the churches, glebes, &c, procured at the 
expense of the whole community, are not only evidences 
of this, but of an impolitic partiality which we are sorry 
to have observed so long. 

" We, therefore, in the name of the Presbyterian 
Church in Virginia, beg leave to exercise our privilege 
as freemen, in remonstrating against the former abso- 
lutely, and against the latter under the restrictions above 
expressed. 

" We oppose the bill, 

" Because it is a departure from the proper line of 
legislation. 

" Because it is unnecessary, and inadequate to its 
professed end — impolitic, in many respects, — and a di- 
rect violation of the Declaration of Rights. 

" The end of civil government is security to the tem- 
poral liberty and property of mankind, and to protect 
them in the free exercise of religion. Legislators are 
invested with powers from their constituents for these 
purposes only ; and their duty extends no further. Re- 
ligion is altogether personal, and the right of exercising 
it inalienable ; and it is not, cannot, and ought not to 
be resigned to the will of the society at large, and 
much less to the legislature, which derives its authority 
wholly from the consent of the people, and is limited 
by the original intention of civil associations. 



J 20 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

" We never resigned to the control of government 
our right of determining for ourselves in this important 
article, and acting agreeably to the convictions of rea- 
son and conscience, in discharging our duty to our Crea- 
tor. And, therefore, it would have been an unwarrant- 
able stretch of prerogative, in the legislature, to make 
laws concerning it, except for protection. And it would 
be a fatal symptom of abject slavery in us, were we to 
submit to the usurpation. 

" The bill is also an unnecessary and inadequate ex- 
pedient for the end proposed. We are fully persuaded 
of the happy influence of Christianity upon the morals 
of men ; but we have never known it, in the history of 
its progress, so effectual for this purpose, as when left 
to its native excellence and evidence to recommend it, 
under the all-directing providence of God, and free from 
the intrusive hand of the civil magistrate. Its divine 
Author did not think it necessary to render it dependent 
on earthly governments. And experience has shown 
that this dependence, where it has been effected, has 
been an injury rather than an aid. It has introduced 
corruption among the teachers and professors of it, 
wherever it has been tried, for hundreds of years ; and 
has been destructive of genuine morality, in proportion 
to the zeal of the powers of this world in arming it with 
the sanction of legal terrors, or inviting to its profession 
by honours and rewards. 

" It is urged, indeed, by the abettors of this bill, that 
it would be the means of cherishing religion and morality 
among the citizens. But it appears from fact, that these 
can be promoted only by the internal conviction of the 
mind, and its voluntary choice, which such establish- 
ments cannot effect. 

" We further remonstrate against the bill as an im- 
politic measure. 

" It disgusts so large a proportion of citizens, that it 
would weaken the influence of government in other 
respects, and diffuse a spirit of opposition to the rightful 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 121 

exercise of constitutional authority, if enacted into a 
law. 

" It partially supposes the Quakers and Mennonists 
to be more faithful in conducting the religious interests 
of their societies than the other sects — which we ap- 
prehend to be contrary to fact. 

" It unjustly subjects men who may be good citizens, 
but who have not embraced our common faith, to the 
hardship of supporting a system they have not as yet be- 
lieved the truth of; and deprives them of their property, 
for what they do not suppose to be of importance to them. 

" It establishes a precedent for further encroachments, 
by making the legislature judges of religious truth. 
If the Assembly have a right to determine the preference 
between Christianity and the other systems of religion 
that prevail in the world, they may also, at a convenient 
time, give a preference to some favoured sect among 
Christians. 

" It discourages the population of our country by 
alarming those who may have been oppressed by religious 
establishments in other countries, with fears of the same 
in this ; and by exciting our own citizens to emigrate to 
other lands of greater freedom. 

" It revives the principle which our ancestors con- 
tested to blood, of attempting to reduce all religions 
to one standard by the force of civil authority. 

" And it naturally opens a door for contention among 
citizens of different creeds, and different opinions re- 
specting the extent of the powers of government. 

" The bill is also a direct violation of the Declara- 
tion of Rights, which ought to be the standard of all 
laws. The sixteenth article is clearly infringed upon by 
it, and any explanation which may have been given of 
it by the friends of this measure in the legislature, so as 
to justify a departure from its literal construction, might 
also be used to deprive us of other fundamental prin- 
ciples of our government. 

M 



122 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

w For these reasons, and others that might be pro- 
duced, we conceive it our duty to remonstrate and pro- 
test against the said bill, and earnestly urge that it may 
not be enacted into a law." 

[The next four paragraphs relate to the proposed Act 
for incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church, and 
are of lesser consequence.] 

" That Heaven may illuminate your minds with all 
that wisdom which is necessary for the important pur- 
poses of your deliberation, is our earnest wish. And 
we beg leave to assure you, that however warmly we 
may engage in preserving our religion free from the 
shackles of human authority, and opposing claims of 
spiritual domination in civil powers, we are zealously 
disposed to support the government of our country, and 
to maintain a due submission to the lawful exercise of 
its authority. 

" Signed by order of the Convention, 

" John Todd, Chairman. 

" Attest, Daniel M' Call a, Clerk. 

"Bethel, Augusta County, 15th August, 1785." 

The result of this long-continued agitation, on the 
part of the Presbyterian clergy of Virginia, was that 
the Bill for the support of religion, by means of a ge- 
neral assessment, from which that body of clergy would 
have derived precisely the same pecuniary advantages 
as their Episcopalian brethren, was thrown out in the 
House of Assembly, after it had passed the second 
reading and been engrossed for the third. And, as all 
the acts of the British Parliament, as well as all the 
enactments of the old colonial legislature, establishing 
the Episcopal church in Virginia had, in the meantime, 
been repealed, the Voluntary System became thence- 
forward the law of the land. Not that there was any 
law establishing or enforcing that system. It required 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 123 

none ; all that was necessary in the case, viz., the 
repeal of positive enactments in favour of a particu- 
lar church, having been already effected. 

The case of Virginia in this most important affair 
was, therefore, totally different from the somewhat 
equivocal case of Dissenters, either in Great Britain or 
Ireland, expressing their conscientious objections against 
the principle of a civil establishment of religion, and 
demanding that that principle should be renounced, and 
the existing establishments reduced to the Voluntary 
level. In other words, it was not the case of men, as it 
is quite possible the other may be, crying that the 
grapes were sour because they could not get at them. 
On the contrary, it was the case of a comparatively 
large and influential body of clergy who, when offered 
by the State all the immunities and emoluments of a 
civil establishment of their church, on the same footing 
with that of the most favoured in the land, deliberately 
refused them, because they conscientiously believed 
the possession and enjoyment of them to be prejudicial 
to the best interests of the Church of Christ. In short, 
the case of the Presbyterian clergy of Virginia, at this 
important crisis in the history of their country, was, 
perhaps, unparalleled in the history of the Church for 
the Christian principle and the self-denial it exhibited 
in a season of peculiar temptation. 

It is right, therefore, that the credit of this most im- 
portant measure should be given to those to whom it is 
thus most justly due. The establishment of the Vo- 
luntary System, and the entire separation of Church and 
State in Virginia, was no infidel and revolutionary 
measure of Mr. Jefferson's, but the work of eminently 
pious, devoted, and Christian men. It was not a mea- 
sure which the Presbyterian clergy of that State were 
obliged to accept with the best grace they could, be- 
cause they could get no better ; but the one of their 
own solemn, deliberate, and unanimous choice. These 



124 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

considerations will not be without their weight among 
all candid and disinterested men, whatever they may 
think of the efforts of our own Dissenters. 

The error of ascribing this measure to Mr. Jefferson 
has probably arisen from the circumstance of his having 
introduced the law establishing the famous statute of 
mortmain in Virginia, in the year 1776. By this law, 
however — for the enactment of which Mr. Jefferson cer- 
tainly did take some credit to himself, and doubtless 
with good reason — the principle of a religious establish- 
ment was left untouched ; as it merely prevented the 
bequeathing of real estate in all time coming to reli- 
gious or other corporations, by declaring such corpora- 
tions incapable of holding it. The right of the legisla- 
ture to impose a general assessment for the support of 
one or more established churches remained unquestioned 
by that law ; the principle of an establishment was left 
entire in the theory of the government. It was pre- 
cisely this right, however, that the Presbyterian clergy 
called in question ; it was the principle of an establish- 
ment that they attacked, and attacked successfully. 

The transcendant importance of this measure, not 
only to all America, but eventually even to the Old 
World, will not appear at first view to the English reader, 
who regards it as applying merely to Virginia. It is a 
beautiful and most interesting peculiarity, however, of the 
American political system, and one which, perhaps, 
more than all others besides insures its stability, that 
when any important principle in the science of govern- 
ment, of which the operation is found beneficial to so- 
ciety, has been wrought out, discovered, or developed 
in any one part of the Union, it gradually, but most 
certainly, becomes the property and possession of the 
whole. At the period in question, Virginia was the 
leading State of the South, if not of the whole Union. 
Its proceedings were carefully watched, and its exam- 
ple generally followed by the smaller adjoining States 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 125 

of Maryland and Delaware on the one hand, and by the 
Carolinas and Georgia on the other. Whenever, there- 
fore, the new system of leaving religion entirely to itself 
had been duly tested and found to work well in Vir- 
ginia, it was successively adopted by each of these 
States. And so general had the feeling in favour of 
that system become, almost immediately after its intro- 
duction, that when the Federal Government was con- 
stituted in the year 1789, one of the fundamental stipu- 
lations of its Constitution was, that it should never have 
the power to erect an Established Church in the United 
States. 

I have already observed, that in the little Baptist 
State of Rhode Island, as well as in the Quaker colony 
of Pennsylvania, there had been no church establish- 
ment from the first. But these communities had had 
comparatively no influence in this particular on the 
neighbouring States. It was the struggle with power- 
ful and opposing influences for the establishment of a 
great moral principle in Virginia, that attracted general 
attention throughout the Union ; it was the successful 
operation of that principle when actually established, 
that carried conviction, and insured its universal adoption. 

The English Independents have long been endea- 
vouring to persuade the world that they have uniformly 
been the warm advocates of civil and religious liberty, 
and the only and consistent opponents of Religious 
Establishments. When other Christian people recollect, 
however, how easily "Cromwell's own clergy" were 
persuaded to accept the " sequestered" benefices of the 
Church of England, they will doubtless drop a tear of 
pity over the frailty even of Independents. But what 
will they think when they are told that, even in New 
England — the place where the principles of the Inde- 
pendents were the soonest planted, and the most widely 
spread, in America — the principle of a Religious Esta- 
blishment was, nevertheless, the most firmly rooted, and 

m 2 



126 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

the most difficult to eradicate. It is quite edifying to 
hear the venerable Cotton Mather, the historian of New 
England, who will surely be acknowledged as a sound 
Congregationalism talking in his own antique style, not 
only about the advantage, but about the honour and 
the dignity of a Religious Establishment. " Ministers 
of the gospel," says this excellent man, " would have a 
poor time of it, if they must rely on a free contribution 
of the people for their maintenance." And again, " The 
laws of the province (of Massachusetts) having had the 
royal approbation to ratify them, they are the king's 
laws. By these laws it is enacted, that there shall be 
a public worship of God in every plantation ; that the 
person elected by the majority of the inhabitants to be 
so, shall be looked upon as the minister of the place ; 
and that the salary for him, which they shall agree 
upon, shall be levied by a rate upon all the inhabitants* 
In consequence of this, the minister thus chosen by the 
people, is (not only Christ's, but also) in reality, the 
king's minister ; and the salary raised for him, is raised 
in the king's name, and is the king's allowance unto 
him."* 

In short, as there are certain books which every de- 
nomination of Christians will naturally wish, for their 
own credit, to have been in the keeping of the caliph 
Omar, when he burnt the library of Alexandria, it is 
natural for the English Independents to wish that cer- 
tain of those ancient volumes, that treat of the doings 
of their brethren in New England, in the cause of civil 
and religious liberty, had long ago been consigned 
either to oblivion or to the flames. In the year 1631, 
only eleven years after the congregation of Mr. Robin- 
son landed on Plymouth Rock, and established the 
colony of Massachusetts, it was ordered by the General 

* The Rev, Cotton Mather's " Ratio Discipline ; or faithful 
account of the discipline professed and practised in the churches of 
New England." 1726. Page 20. 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 127 

Court of that colony, that " no person be admitted to 
the freedom of the body politic, but such as were 
members of some of the churches within its limits."* 
In the year 1634, Roger Williams, of Salem, holding 
tenets which were considered heretical and seditious, 
" tending equally to sap the foundations of the Esta- 
blishment in Church and State," was banished that 
colony. The tenets he held were those of the modern 
Baptists, and the place he went to, when exiled from 
Massachusetts, was Rhode Island, where he planted 
the little colony of that name. In the year 1644, a 
more stringent law, condemning Anabaptists to impri- 
sonment, whipping, and banishment, was enacted by 
the same General Court; and, in 1656, twelve Quakers 
were banished under a similar statute ; of whom two, 
having subsequently returned to the colony, were 
actually hanged for heresy alone, in the year 1659.f 
It is melancholy to think, also, of the number of alleged 
witches that were afterwards burnt in this peculiarly 
Congregational colony, under the authority of the civil 
magistrates ; although it must be confessed, that the 
same horrible barbarity was practised, at the same time, 
in almost all parts of Europe. In short, arguments 
from the practice of our forefathers are often the most 
unfavourable in their bearing to those who are the 
readiest to use them. 

It was long after the War of Independence, and only 
in consequence of a series of hard struggles on the part 
of other communions, that the example of Virginia, in 
establishing the voluntary system, was acted upon in 
Massachusetts, and the old Congregational Establish- 
ment of that State entirely overthrown. The Episco- 
palians had been relieved from contributions to the 
Standing Ministry, and their congregations had been 

f Holmes' American Annals. Ibid. 



128 HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 

erected into Incorporated Societies, or poll-parishes, 
previous to the Revolution ; but, although the consti- 
tution of 1780, which maintained the old assessment 
for religious worship, allowed every person to appro- 
priate his taxes to whatever society he pleased, it was 
still held by the courts of Massachusetts, till the year 
1811, under a statute passed in 1799, " That a 
member of a territorial parish (which is a corporation) 
could not withdraw his taxes, imposed for support of 
religious worship, for the purpose of applying the 
money to the maintenance of a teacher of an unincor- 
porated society."* By the statute of 1811, which was 
afterwards amended in 1823, a duly attested certificate 
of membership in any other religious society, whether 
incorporated or not, was sufficient to relieve the holder 
from all taxes for the support of the territorial establish- 
ment of the Congregational Church ; but it was still the 
law and practice of Massachusetts, in perfect conformity 
to that of England, even under the last of these statutes, 
to regard all persons, in any town or parish, who be- 
longed to no religious society whatever, as regular 
members of the Congregational Church, and taxable for 
the support of its clergy .f And it was only ten years 
ago, or in the year 1830 — after the Voluntary System 
had been in operation for half a century in Virginia, 
and in most of the other States of the Union — that it 
was at length fully established in Massachusetts, and 
an entire separation effected, throughout the Union, be- 
tween Church and State. In short, it was the Congre- 
gationalists of New England who held on to " the 

* Notes to a Sermon on Religious Liberty, preached on the day 
of the annual fast of Massachusetts, April 3, 1828, by the Rev. 
William Cogswell, A.M., Pastor of the South Church at Dedham, 
Massachusetts. Second edition; Boston, 1831. Dr. Cogswell is 
now Secretary to the American Education Society. 

+ Ibid. 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN AMERICA. 129 

wedge of gold and the goodly Babylonish garment," to 
the last : the Presbyterians, even in their day of small 
things, resolutely refused them both, when they were 
pressed upon them by the rulers of their country. It 
remains to be ascertained how they have fared for their 
pains. 



CHAPTER IV. 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM 
IN THE UNITED STATES— CHURCH ACCOMMODA- 
TION. 

If an American citizen from the State of Massachusetts, 
the most densely peopled in the Union, were to land in 
Great Britain, to make inquiries relative to the provi- 
sion for the dispensation of the ordinances of religion in 
this country, and to fix his residence, with this view, 
in the parish of Loch Broom, in the county of Ross, in 
Scotland — a parish which is sixty miles in length, and 
forty in breadth, which is intersected by arms of the 
sea, and for whose thinly-scattered and small popula- 
tion there is only, at this moment, or at least there was 
till lately, only one parish minister to dispense the ordi- 
nances of religion — what would be thought either of 
the understanding or of the honesty of such a person, 
if he were to represent that parish, on his return to 
America, as a specimen of the manner in which the 
maintenance of religious worship is provided for in 
Scotland ? Why, if he were not set down at once as a 
very ignorant or a very unprincipled man, he w r ould 
immediately be told that Loch Broom was the excep- 
tion, and not the rule, in Scotland ; and that that ex- 
ception had necessarily arisen from its peculiar circum- 
stances — its great extent, and the thinness of its popu- 
lation. And if he ventured to reply, he would, doubtless, 
be silenced at once with the additional information, 
that, although there was but one minister in the parish 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 131 

of Loch Broom, there were three or four churches, in 
all of which he officiated by turns. And yet the very 
men, who will at once recognise the reasonableness of 
such a state of things in Scotland, will, in all likelihood, 
exclaim loudly against the efficiency of the Voluntary 
System in America, because in districts of country in 
the United States, in which the same amount of popu- 
lation is scattered, perhaps, over three or four times the 
extent of the large parish of Loch Broom, one does not 
meet with parish churches and settled pastors at every 
turn. The vast territory that now constitutes the States 
of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, 
and the region of Florida, was only acquired by the 
United States since the commencement of the present 
century ; and had previously been possessed exclusively, 
and partially colonized, by the French and Spaniards. 
And, with the exception of the towns of this territory, 
which are still few and far between, the actual popula- 
tion is very thinly scattered over its vast extent. 

Besides, the rapidity with which population advances 
into the vast western wilderness, constitutes another 
peculiarity in the circumstances of the American 
churches, to which there is no parallel in this country. 
Within the last three years, the Rev. Mr. Blackman, 
an old Presbyterian clergyman of the State of Indiana, 
who had come to collect funds in the city of Phila- 
delphia, for the establishment of a college in that State, 
mentioned at a public meeting in Philadelphia, that 
from the summit of a hill near Pittsburgh, on the west* 
ern frontier of Pennsylvania, where he was born, he 
could take in, when a boy, with a single glance of his 
eye, almost the whole of the population which was 
then located to the westward of the Alleghany moun- 
tains, and which at that time did not exceed twenty 
thousand souls. The population to the westward of 
the Alleghanies is now estimated at five millions ! 
With a domestic population, therefore, increasing upon 



132 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

them at a rate unprecedented in Europe, and requiring 
additional churches and ministers every year in propor- 
tion to that rate of increase, the citizens and churches 
of the Atlantic States of America have thus been 
called on, in the course of a single lifetime, to provide 
for the religious instruction of other five millions of 
people in addition to their own — people located far 
beyond their own frontier, and expanded over a terri- 
tory equal in extent to half the size of Europe. The 
State of Ohio, for example, the first to the westward of 
the Alleghany mountains, of which the population is 
now a million and a half, was only admitted into the 
Union — an event which then implied an actual popu- 
lation of 30,000, or thereby — in the year 1802 ; that 
of Indiana, situated immediately beyond Ohio, and of 
which the population is now 750,000, in 1816 ; and 
that of Illinois, still farther to the westward, in 1818. 
The last mentioned of these States comprises a terri- 
tory of 53,000 square miles, that is, more than two- 
thirds the size of all England ; and its population, at 
the census of 1830, was only 157,445 ; and yet, in 
the year 1835, when, allowing that the population had 
actually doubled itself by immigration during the in- 
terval, it could only have amounted to 314,890, the 
following provision had already been made for the reli- 
gious instruction of the comparatively few and widely 
scattered inhabitants of Illinois ir- 
religious DENOMINATIONS IN ILLINOIS IN THE YEAR 

1835. 

Methodist Episcopal Church — 61 circuit preachers y 
308 local preachers ; 15,097 members. 

Baptists — 22 associations; 260 churches; 160 
preachers ; and 7,350 communicants. 

Presbyterians — 1 synod, containing 8 presbyteries ; 
80 churches ; 60 ministers ; and 2,500 commu- 
nicants. 

Congregationalists — 1 association or presbytery; 12 
to 15 churches ; number of ministers not known. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 133 

Methodist Protestants — 22 ministers ; number of 

members not known. 
Cumberland Presbyterians — 2 or 3 presbyteries ; J 2 

or 15 preachers. 
Covenanters and Seceders — 4 or 5 churches. 
Episcopal Church — 1 bishop; 8 or 10 churches; 

7 or 8 ministers. 
Lutherans — several congregations ; besides smaller 
bodies of Moravians, Friends, Campbellites, Tun- 
kers, and Mormons. 
Roman Catholics — 8 or 1 priests ; with a popu- 
lation, however, estimated at not above 6,000 al- 
together, and consisting of old French villagers, 
and Irish labourers on the Illinois canal. 
And yet this is one of the States of which Captain 
Marryat speaks, when he tells us that, " With the ex- 
ception of certain cases to be found in western Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, the whole of the States to 
the westivard of the Alleghany mountains, comprising 
more than two-thirds of America, may be said to be 
either in a state of neglect and darkness, or professing 
the Catholic religion."* 

Of the religious denominations enumerated above, 
the Presbyterians are only the third in point of number ; 
the Methodists and Baptists being considerably more 
numerous. And yet, in a State still more recently 
formed than that of Illinois, — I mean the State of Mis- 
souri, to the westward of the Mississippi, — the Presby- 
terians have for several years past had a college for the 
education of ministers of religion of their own denomi- 
nation for that State. I saw one of their ministers, who 
had come as a Delegate from Missouri to the General 
Assembly, at Philadelphia, in the end of May last — a 
distance of 1,600 miles. Captain Marryat's statement is, 
therefore, utterly unfounded : the Protestants of America 

* Diary in America, Amer. edit., p. 219. 

N 



134 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

have not neglected the west. They have not left it 
either in darkness or Popery. 

In the older States of Indiana and Ohio, the pro- 
vision for the support of the ordinances of religion is 
still better than in Illinois, and the churches are in a 
more settled condition. In all these States, however, 
and in those of the West generally, a large proportion 
of the ministers of religion are in the first instance 
merely missionaries, supported either by the general 
benevolence of the particular denomination to which 
they belong, through their Societies for Domestic Mis- 
sions, or by that of particular congregations. As an 
instance of the extent to which this most praiseworthy 
practice obtains in the American churches, I will men- 
tion a circumstance related to me by Mr. Primrose, a 
Scotch gentleman now settled at the town of Raleigh, 
in North Carolina, but who had been for several years 
past a member of the Presbyterian church under the 
pastoral charge of the Rev. Dr. M'Auley, an eminently 
devoted minister in the city of New York. The Sun- 
day-school attached to Dr. M'A.'s church, in which 
Mr. Primrose had been one of the teachers, consists of 
upwards of 200 pupils ; and these pupils, acting under 
the superintendence of the teachers, have a sort of 
Missionary Society of their own, for the support of the 
Christian ministry in feeble congregations of recent 
formation in the Far West. They raise 450 dollars 
per annum for this purpose, and with that amount they 
maintain a Christian ministry, in not fewer than four 
churches in the western wilderness ; giving 200 dollars 
per annum to one, where the people are able to raise 
only 100 themselves ; 150 to a second ; and 50 each 
to other two. In the first of these cases the minister, 
finding the people to whom he had been sent able to 
contribute only the small amount of 100 dollars, and 
loth to call upon his benevolent supporters for a larger 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 135 

allowance than they had at first thought necessary, in 
addition to the contributions of the people, informed 
them that he feared he should be obliged, although 
very unwillingly, to leave the station altogether, in 
consequence of the utter inability of the congregation 
to support his family. Being then requested to state 
what sum would be necessary for his support in the 
locality in question, he replied that he could live com- 
fortably in that part of the country for 300 dollars per 
annum. The sum which had previously been allowed 
him was therefore immediately raised to 200 dollars. 

As I was desirous of ascertaining the comparative 
value of money in Scotland, and in such localities in 
America as those above referred to, and as the Ameri- 
cans themselves could give me no information on the 
subject, I applied to a very intelligent and respectable 
Scotchman, of the name of Bell, who was engaged at 
the time, as an architect, in erecting the United States' 
arsenal at Fayetteville, the head of the navigation of 
Cape Fear River, in North Carolina. Mr. Bell in- 
formed me, therefore, that he had had a wife and 
several children previous to his emigration to the 
United States — a circumstance which implied some 
experience in the expenses of housekeeping ; that his 
salary in Scotland had been 100/. a year, and that he 
could live more comfortably in North Carolina for 300 
dollars than he could in Edinburgh for 100/. sterling. 
One hundred a year is certainly but a small salary for 
a minister of the gospel ; but how many excellent men 
are there not in Scotland, both in the Church and 
among the Dissenters, who would consider themselves 
" passing rich" even with such a salary ? 

The advantage which is likely to accrue to the Chris- 
tian church, especially in such a country as America, 
from thus instilling, as it were, the principle of bene- 
volence into the youthful heart, is evident and unques- 
tionable : and this principle, Mr. Primrose informed me, 
is kept alive and strengthened, moreover, by occasional 




136 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

letters and visits from the ministers of the churches that 
are thus planted in the West; from which the pupils de- 
rive interesting and often highly exciting information 
respecting the spiritual destitution of the country, the 
benefits that have been derived from their Christian 
benevolence, especially in cases of conversion or revival, 
and the efforts of the congregations that have thus been 
formed to impart to others the blessings they have them- 
selves so freely received. The following letter, which 
I extract from " The Watchman of the South," a religi- 
ous newspaper, published weekly at Richmond, in Vir- 
ginia, by the Rev. Dr. Plumer, minister of the First 
Presbyterian church in that city, illustrates the manner 
in which recently formed churches, in the more thinly 
settled parts of the country, are thus led to contribute 
towards the great work of extending to others, in less 
favourable circumstances, the benefits and the blessings 
of our holy religion. The letter I refer to is from a 
Presbyterian minister in the South, notifying certain 
contributions to the General Assembly's Board of Pub- 
lication, from a brother minister, the pastor of three 
churches in one of the more recently settled districts 
of North Carolina. The letter is also interesting in 
another point of view, as it exhibits something of the 
internal machinery of the Gaelic portion of that State. 

SEMI-CENTENARY THANK-OFFERING. 

" Brother Plumer, — In addition to what has formerly 
been reported, in relation to this fund, will you please 
to give publicity to the following small collections, de- 
signed for the General Assembly's Board of Publication, 
viz. 

Dollars. 

" Contribution of the Bluff congregation 21 11 \ 
Tirza " . 11 17f 

Mount Pisgah . 5 80 

38 15 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 137 

" These contributions were put into my hands by the 
Rev. Allan McDougald, pastor of the above named 
churches, and will be forwarded to Philadelphia, by 
one of the commissioners of the Presbytery of Fay- 
etteville, to the General Assembly. 

" Yours fraternally, 

"COLIN McIVER. 

" Fayetteville, (N. C.,) 20th April, 1840." 

In a postscript, the writer notifies a contribution of 
eight dollars and a quarter from the " Bluff" congrega- 
tion, one of the three above mentioned, to the General 
Assembly's Board of Foreign Missions. 

In short, the western and southern portions of the 
United States of America, can only be regarded as 
bearing the same relation to the older Atlantic States, as 
the British colonies to Great Britain and Ireland. The 
only difference is, that our colonies are separated from 
the mother country by wide oceans, while those of Ame- 
rica form part and parcel of the common country, and 
are bound up, so to speak, in the same national volume. 
It would, therefore, be equally absurd to attempt to run 
a parallel between the valley of the Mississippi on the 
one hand, and Great Britain on the other, as it would 
to attempt to institute comparisons between Canada or 
the Cape Colony, and the best cultivated and most 
densely peopled districts of our own country.* The 

* In a recent letter to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America, the Synod of Canada in- 
form the Assembly that they have more than a hundred locali- 
ties within their bounds in which they could immediately settle 
ministers if they had them ; or in other words, that tliey have 
a hundred vacant churches in their territory ! And yet the very 
men in Scotland, who have neither gone themselves, nor done 
any thing worth mentioning in the way of sending others to supply 
this great spiritual destitution in our own Canadian colony, are not 
ashamed at their public meetings, and in their religious journals, 
to reproach the Americans, and to cry out against their Voluntary 
System, because there are still vacant churches also in their great 

n2 




138 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

cities, towns, and large villages of America, and the 
more thickly settled districts of the older Atlantic 
States, are the only parts of that country that ought 
ever to be compared with Great Britain, in regard to 
provision for religious worship. I proceed, therefore, 
to institute such a comparison, in a few cases, in which 
its legitimateness will scarcely fail to be acknowledged 
by every candid reader. 

The three States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 
and Connecticut, in New England, occupy a belt of 
land, bounded to the eastward by Long Island Sound 
and the Atlantic Ocean, of a hundred and fifty miles in 
length, and a hundred in breadth. The united popula- 
tion of the three States amounts to twelve hundred 
thousand souls ; and as the land is for the most part 
comparatively unproductive, like that of Scotland, this 
population is employed partly in agriculture, partly in 
manufactures, partly in commerce of all kinds, and 
partly in fisheries and navigation,* The region I refer 
to is also the principal region of the United States for 

colony of five millions of people in the west! Besides, the Ame- 
rican colony is the more recent of the two. 

* The bleak hills and long winters of New England are unfavour- 
able to the most extensive and profitable agricultural pursuits, while 
the extensive and deeply indented sea coasts, abounding with har- 
bours, headlands, rivers, and inlets, naturally produce an impulse 
towards the ocean, which, conspiring with the original adventurous 
character of the population, sends them roving from the arctic to 
the antarctic circle, till the wide world is laid under contribution by 
their enterprise. Their numerous streams and waterfalls furnish 
the cheapest means for moving machinery, and thus manufactories 
spring up wherever, in their expressive phraseology, there is ivater 
power ; and steam supplies local deficiencies of moving force. In- 
genuity, conspiring with a general system of education, is excited 
under such culture, to produce numerous inventions, and hosts o 
■ young men seek their fortunes successfully abroad as mechanics, 
seamen, traders, instructors, and politicians, who thus operate pow- 
erfully, and, we trust, beneficially, on other communities. — Sugges- 
tions relative to the Philosophy of Geology, Ly Professor Silliman, of 
Yale College, Connecticut. New Haven, 1839. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 



139 



emigration ; and its Educational Institutions, whether of 
a higher or of an elementary character, are similar to 
those of Scotland, if not superior in point of general 
efficiency.* The only natural products of the country 
which are worth exporting are granite and ice ; the 
former being exported to the Atlantic cities to the south- 
ward, as far as Charleston, and the latter to all civilized 
countries either within or bordering upon the torrid zone 
— a cargo of this perishable article having been recently 
sent from Boston even to New South Wales. The 
quantity of manufactured goods of all kinds, however, 
and the number of well-educated men that are annually 
exported from this tract of country are very great. In 
short, one could scarcely desire a fairer subject for com- 
parison with any part of Scotland of similar extent and 
population. In the three States of Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, and Connecticut, there are, therefore, 
1 540 churches altogether,f viz. : — 

Congregational Presbyterian 

Baptist . 

Methodist 

Episcopalian . 

Quakers' Meetings . 

Smaller Denominations 



Unitarian 
Universalist 



608 
318 
215 
123 
46 
42 
142 
66 



Abstracting from this account the heretical denomi- 
nations, of which I shall speak more particularly here- 
after, there are, therefore, upwards of 1300 places of 

* My fellow-student, the late John Morrison Duncan, A. M., in 
his " Travels in America," a work published about fifteen years ago, 
draws a parallel between the University of Glasgow and Harvard, or 
Cambridge University, in Massachusetts, and Yale College, in Con- 
necticut ; in which he does not hesitate to give the preference, in 
point of efficiency, to the New England Institutions. 

f The Roman Catholics have been omitted in this enumeration , 
but they are very few in number. 



140 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

orthodox worship in a tract of country in New England 
of only one hundred and fifty miles in length and one 
hundred in breadth. Of the character and appearance 
of these places of worship, taking them altogether in 
town and country, I have no hesitation in asserting that 
they look as well, and are just as creditable to the country 
as the great majority of those of Scotland. Many of 
the private houses in New England, even those of 
people of a respectable standing in society, are built of 
wood ; and from being generally painted every year, 
and having trees surrounding them, they have a neat 
and gay appearance, which the traveller can scarcely 
fail to associate with a high degree of comfort and com- 
parative independence. Many of the churches are also 
of this material, with neat spires or belfries ; the walls 
painted white, and the window-blinds green. On pass- 
ing a church of this description in a New England 
village, similar to hundreds I had seen throughout the 
country, I asked an intelligent American what such a 
building would cost in that part of the country ? He 
replied, about 3500 dollars ; i. e. little more than <£700. 
It must be recollected, however, that these buildings, 
though less costly than either stone or brick buildings, 
do not last a quarter of the time. The real cost of 
church edifices is, therefore, much the same in New 
England as in Scotland ; and in America churches are 
totalty consumed by fire about a hundred times more 
frequently than in this country. This arises partly 
from the extreme cold of the American winter, and the 
consequent necessity of having them heated by internal 
fires ; and partly from the extremely combustible nature 
of the American pine timber, which enters so largely 
into the construction of all their buildings. During 
the year 1838, about a fourth part of the whole city of 
Charleston was destroyed by fire, including four or five 
churches ; but all these churches, with a single excep- 
tion, had been rebuilt in a superior style previous to my 



CHUHCH ACCOMMODATION. 141 

visit during the present year. They were all of brick, 
stuccoed over, which is the usual style of building in 
Charleston. 

In regard to the provision for the support of the or- 
dinances of religion in these churches, there are 1150 
ministers of the Congregational Presbyterian Church in 
the six New England States. Allowing, therefore, only 
one-half of these ministers to the three more populous 
States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecti- 
cut, the number of ministers of this communion alone 
in these States will be 575, or nearly one minister for 
each church. Indeed, the case of a pastor having more 
than one church under his care is a very rare occur- 
rence in the States in question ; while in the more 
thinly settled districts of America it is the general rule. 
Indeed, my inquiries led me to conclude that the 
parishes of New England, and especially of the three 
States under consideration, are, with very few exceptions, 
well supplied with a resident ministry ; and the neat 
appearance of the churches, the universal attention to 
religious worship, and the strict and even puritanical 
observance of the Sabbath, confirmed this conclusion. 

In a tract of country, therefore, in the United States 
of America, of half the extent and with half the popu- 
lation of Scotland, and in which, moreover, the circum- 
stances and general character of that population, are 
remarkably similar to those of the people of Scotland, 
we find an amount of church accommodation, and a 
supply of evangelical ministers, even under the opera- 
tion of the Voluntary System, such as no part of Scot- 
land can equal. I have only, indeed, given the number 
of the resident clergy of one of the leading denomina- 
tions — the one that was formerly the established church 
of the country ; but I have every reason to believe, 
that the 318 Baptist, and the 2J5 Methodist, and the 
123 Episcopalian churches of the three States in ques- 
tion, are just as well supplied with a resident ministry, 
as the 608 Congregational Presbyterian. The propor- 



514 


212 


143 


109 


978 



142 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

tion of ministers to churches in the Baptist communion 
in the United States, is as 2 to 3 ; and in the Episcopa- 
lian, as 8 to 9 ; while in the Congregational Presby- 
terian, it is as 11 to 13. Even at this rate, therefore, 
which however applies rather to the thinly settled dis- 
tricts, than to those of denser population, the number 
of resident ministers of the principal orthodox denomi- 
nations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connec- 
ticut, will be as follows, viz. 

Congregational Presbyterian 

Baptist ...... 

Methodist ..... 

Episcopalian ..... 

Total . 



It is unnecessary to ask whether such a list can be 
exhibited in the one-half of Scotland. 

The salaries of the country clergy of the Congrega- 
tional Presbyterian Church of New England, are gene- 
rally about 500 dollars per annum.* In addition to 
this salary, they have usually a manse and glebe. In 
the city of Boston, the salaries of the clergy of all the 
leading communions vary from 1500 to 3000 dollars — 
from 300/. to 600/. — per annum. I have already ob- 
served that there was formerly an assessment for the 
support of religion in New England ; and Captain 
Marryat ascribes the religious and moral influence still 
observable in that portion of the Union to this fact. 
The fact is, (for I took particular pains to ascertain it,) 
that the salaries of the New England clergy have im- 
proved materially since the assessment was abolished ; 
the sum contributed for the support of religion being 

* In the country parts of New England, living is remarkably 
cheap ; and a salary of the amount above mentioned, will in reality 
be equal to 160/. or thereby, in Scotland. In the cities, living is 
very expensive in all parts of America. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 



143 



considerably greater now than it ever was in that coun- 
try. The influence of an establishment, however, could 
surely not have operated where no establishment ever 
existed ; but such was the case, not only in the State 
of Rhode Island, as I have already remarked, but in the 
city of Boston also, the capital of New England. The 
first minister of that city, and author of the New England 
Ecclesiastical System, was " the famous Mr. John Cot- 
ton," as he is styled by his worthy descendant, the 
Rev. Cotton Mather. Mr. Cotton was settled at Bos- 
ton in the year 1633. Some time thereafter an assess- 
ment for the support of religion was voted by the le- 
gislature ; but as Mr. Cotton had objections to this 
method of supporting religion, and expressed his desire 
that Boston should be left under the operation of the 
Voluntary System, which he had found to work suffi- 
ciently well, that city was accordingly exempted from 
the public assessment. And so highly was the memory 
of this venerable man revered in succeeding times, that 
no assessment for the support of religion was ever im- 
posed on the inhabitants of Boston to the present day. 
The population of Boston, by a census taken in 1835, 
was 80,320. For this population, there is the follow- 
ing amount of church accommodation. 



Congregational Presbyterian Churches . 


14 


Unitarian ...... 


13 


Episcopalian . 




. 7 


Baptist (including one African) 




. 5 


Roman Catholic 




. 4 


Universalist . 




. 3 


Christian Societies 




■ 2 


Friends' Meeting 




, 1 


Swedenborgian . 




. 1 


Restorationist . 




, 1 



Total 



58 



144 EESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

The church edifices in Boston, especially those of 
the Congregational and Episcopalian denominations, 
are of a highly creditable character ; most of them 
having lofty spires or towers, and bells. Besides the 
Unitarian churches expressly enumerated above, the 
people who call their meetings Christian Societies are, 
I understand, Baptist Unitarians. It is worthy of re- 
mark, however, that the first church in Boston that be- 
came avowedly Unitarian — that did so also thirty years 
before the heresy was acknowledged in other quarters — 
was an Episcopal church, called " The King's Chapel."* 
The incumbent of this church, and his whole congrega- 
tion, openly avowed Unitarianism in the year 1 785. They 
still retain the English Liturgy, expurgated, of course, 
according to the approved maxims of Socinian theology. 
But I shall reserve the remarks I have to offer on the 
origin, extent, and prospects of this apostacy, till a sub- 
sequent chapter. At present I shall only observe, that 
notwithstanding the appalling number of the Unitarian 
churches in the preceding list, the great majority of the 
population of Boston belong to the orthodox commu- 
nions. 

Deducting, therefore, the whole motley company of 
Unitarians, Universalists, Christian Society people, 
Roman Catholics, Swedenborgians, and Restoration- 
istsf — a large majority of whom would in all likeli- 
hood have either been Socialists or Nothing-at-all-ists, 
if they had been in England, and not in the chief city 

* This church was erected at the expense of the British govern- 
ment, previous to the revolutionary war. It has a singular and un- 
sightly appearance, having a row of very small windows on each 
side, with a row of much larger ones above them. The small win- 
dows look like gun-ports in a ship's side ; and a New Englander, on 
seeing them for the first time, accordingly observed, that " he had 
often heard of the canons of the church, but had never seen her 
ports before.'" 

f The most of these heretical denominations consist of mere 
handful s of people. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 145 

of a Puritan State in America — there are still thirty- 
four places of orthodox and highly evangelical Pro- 
testant worship in the city of Boston for a population 
of eighty thousand souls ; that is, one such place of 
worship for every 2350 persons of the entire popu- 
lation. Now I will venture to affirm that there is not 
a single city of similar population, even in Scotland, 
better provided with orthodox places of worship, and 
orthodox clergy, than this provision implies. Let 
Paisley or Dundee, for example, of both of which the 
population is nearly equal to that of Boston, be com- 
pared with the New England city, and I am confident 
the result will be found highly favourable to the latter. 
In fact, the number of people in both of these Scotch 
towns, who go to no place of worship at all, and live 
in a state of practical heathenism, is notoriously and 
lamentably great, and far exceeds the sum total of all 
the heretics of Boston. 

As to the attendance in the orthodox churches of 
Boston, and the tone and character of society generally 
in that city, after having gone to one of the Unitarian 
churches in the morning of the Sabbath I spent there* 
— less, I acknowledge, as a worshipper than from 
motives of curiosity — I went in the afternoon to Park- 
street church, one of the orthodox Congregational 
Presbyterian churches of the city. It is a large build- 
ing, of plain but substantial architecture, with a hand- 
some spire. The basement story contains a lecture 
room — a uniform and most useful appendage to an 
American church — and Sunday-school rooms. The 
church itself is fitted up in quite a superior style, with 

* I went to hear the celebrated Dr. Charming, but actually 
heard the Rev. Mr. Pierponc, as I found Dr. C. was not to preach, 
having resigned his charge the week before, in consequence of age 
and increasing infirmities. hi resigning his charge, Dr. C. spont ine- 
ouily resinned all his salary and emoluments in favour of his suc- 
cessor ! But this is by no means an uncommon occurrence in such 
cases in America. 





146 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

carpets and cushions, and a fine-toned organ, and will 
easily contain two thousand persons. The congregation 
actually present, evidently consisting of a highly re- 
spectable class of the community, must have amounted 
to at least fifteen hundred. The minister who officiated 
was a stranger. There was nothing remarkable in his 
sermon. It was a plain, practical, evangelical discourse, 
and was evidently listened to with devout attention. 
In the evening of the same Sabbath, I attended divine 
service in the Old South church, also of the Congre- 
gational Presbyterian communion. It was a service, I 
understood, taken by turns by the orthodox city minis- 
ters of that denomination. Sabbath-evening services, 
however, are not popular among the descendants of the 
Puritans. They very properly prefer staying at home 
to instruct and catechise their families. The congre- 
gation was respectable in appearance, but not nume- 
rous, although I was given to understand that the 
regular congregation of the church was one of the 
largest in the city. The clergyman who officiated 
— the Rev. Dr. Jenks — is eminent in Boston as a lite- 
rary man, as well as an able and orthodox divine. 
His discourse was at the same time evangelical and 
practical, although I confess his manner was rather 
heavy. I had also an opportunity, in the course of 
the same Sabbath, of attending divine service in a 
Baptist church. It was not half the size of the Park- 
street church, but was quite fulL The congregation 
was of a humbler class in society than the other two, 
but equally devout, though apparently more excitable, 
the minister being evidently a Revivalist preacher. 

In short, I was much gratified with a Sabbath in Boston. 
Indeed, I never saw the Sabbath better observed any 
where. I never saw a larger portion of the population 
of any city turn out to attend divine service in some 
place or other. As a specimen of the manners of the 
place, I shall only add, that I lodged during my stay at the 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 147 

Marlboro' House, a highly respectable hotel, conducted on 
strict Temperance, or rather Abstinence, principles. The 
breakfast hour was seven o'clock. At half-past six the 
bell was rung every morning for family worship, which 
consisted of singing, reading the Scriptures, and ex- 
tempore prayer. On these occasions, the boarders, as 
persons residing at an hotel are usually styled in Ame- 
rica, are expected to attend ; and one morning I 
counted as many as fifty in the two large rooms that 
were thrown into one for the occasion. The landlord 
of the hotel always conducts the singing himself ; and 
if no clergyman is present, the other parts of the ser- 
vice also. We have no such hotels in Scotland. 

The city of Salem, situated about fourteen miles 
from Boston, and containing a population of 16,000 souls, 
has long been pre-eminent among the American cities 
for its spirit of maritime adventure, and is still the 
wealthiest for its size in the Union. It was too near 
the Pontine marshes, however, to escape the influence 
of the malaria of Unitarianism. The following is the 
amount of Church accommodation it affords : — . 



Congregational Presbyterian Churches . 


4 


Unitarian. 


. . • • • 


4 


Baptist 


• • . » < 


2 


Episcopalian • 


» • • • i 


1 


Methodist 


• • • • < 


I 


Friends' Meeting 


• . • • 


. 1 


Universalist 


• • • • 


1 


Mariner's Church, 


(supplied by Congreg.) 


. 1 



Total 15 
that is, deducting the five heretical assemblies, one 
place of orthodox worship for every 1600 souls. 

Like the Arians in Belfast, the Unitarians of Salem 
have about three-fourths of the wealth of the city in 
their hands. Wealth, indeed, has long had a sort of 



] 48 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

elective attraction for diluted or heretical forms of 
Christianity ; and the men whose touch turns every 
thing into gold usually resemble Midas in another par- 
ticular — in having something wrong with their organs of 
hearing. The Unitarian portion of the population of 
Salem is but small, however, and their congregations 
still smaller. The poor have the gospel preached to 
them there as in other places, and they hear it gladly. 
I was grieved to see the first church erected by the 
Pilgrims, or rather the modern edifice which occupies 
its site, transformed into a Unitarian place of worship ; 
and on meeting in the city with a highly respectable 
merchant of that denomination who, I was told, was a 
lineal descendant of the famous Rogers, the martyr, who 
w T as burned alive at Smithfield, I could not help thinking, 
at the moment, from the striking contrast which the cir- 
cumstance presented, that if the cold and heartless 
system of his offspring had been held by the sainted 
reformer, the " fire," which, in the words of old Latimer, 
"lighted all England," would most assuredly never 
have been kindled ! 

The Americans call a town what we should call a 
parish, township, or district ; and they call a city 
what we should only call a town. The city of New 
Ha^ven, at the mouth of the Quinnipiac river in the 
State of Connecticut, is one of the pleasantest towns of 
New England. It is quite the Athens of America. 
Here is Yale College, presenting literally a series of 
" Academic groves," from the beautiful trees in the 
midst of which its venerable buildings are embosomed : 
there is the Statehouse — the Halls of Learning, and the 
Halls of Legislation. I had the pleasure of meeting 
here a whole knot of American worthies — the venerable 
Colonel Trumbull, the Aide-du-camp and companion of 
Washington, and the celebrated painter of his exploits; 
Dr. Noah Webster, the famous author of the Spelling 
Book and the English Dictionary ; Professor Silliman, 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 149 

the editor of the Scientific Journal which bears his 
name, and is so well known to men of science in Eu- 
rope ; Professor Olmsted, the Astronomer ; the Rev. 
Leonard Bacon, a man of learning and taste, and one 
of the most popular preachers in America ; President 
Day, of Yale College, a man of patriarchal simplicity of 
manners ; and the Rev. Dr. Taylor, who has already 
given his name, or rather, has had it given for him, to a 
system of divinity in which it is alleged he undermines 
certain doctrines of our holy religion, which, however,- 
some of his own pious friends assured me, he is on the 
contrary most anxious to establish. 

Although upwards of eighty years of age, Colonel 
Trumbull still occasionally resorts to the practice of 
his " divine art." His last picture, which he finished 
only a few months ago, and which I had the pleasure 
of admiring in the collection of his paintings which he 
has recently presented to Yale College, has for its 
subject the Deluge. Like Sterne in his famous picture 
of Slavery, he has taken a single family for the illustra- 
tion of his noble idea, and planted it on the summit of 
a solitary rock, which the rising waters are threatening 
to submerge. The family consists of three generations : 
there is the old grandfather, the husband and wife, and 
a little child. The child is lying dead, from cold and 
hunger, on its mother's lap. The husband, in despair, 
is leaping from the rock into the waters ; but the wife is 
gazing so intently and so affectionately on her dead 
child that she does not observe him. The forked 
lightning is in the meantime throwing its frightful glare 
athwart the lurid sky, and the old grandfather, who has 
just witnessed the act of his son, is gazing fiercely at 
the thunder-cloud from which it is ever and anon seen 
to break, and, stretching forth his withered arm in the 
attitude of defiance, is reproaching the Almighty for 
the vastness of the desolation. It is certainly a sublime 
idea, and the concentration of feeling which it produces 

o 2 



150 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

is unquestionably much more intense than the detached 
groups of miserable beings that usually figure in 
pictures of the deluge are calculated to excite. 

Colonel Trumbull's paintings are exhibited in the 
library of Yale College at a small charge for each 
visitor. The proceeds of the exhibition are to go to his 
wife if she survives him, and afterwards to the College, 
to which he has most patriotically presented them in 
perpetuity. It was to Yale College that the celebrated 
Bishop Berkeley presented his valuable library. 

Dr. Webster is a most interesting old man. He 
entered upon the great world, he told me, during the 
Revolutionary War. His father, whom the war had 
ruined, could only give his son Noah an eight-dollar 
bill to set him afloat, like his great namesake, in the 
world, and from the depreciation of the currency which 
had taken place during the war, the bill was in reality 
worth only four dollars, or about seventeen shillings. 
He was thus put upon his shifts very early, and, pour 
gagner sa vie, he wrote a Spelling Book, and stipulated 
with the publishers to receive half a cent, or about a 
farthing of our money, for each copy that should be 
sold. The spelling book, he told me also, has educated 
twice the number of the present inhabitants of the 
Union ; and though it has been repeatedly pirated, to 
evade the half-cent to the author, it has maintained his 
family in comfort and respectability for thirty years, and 
afforded him during that long period literary leisure 
sufficient for the vast labours of his dictionary. Al- 
though it will be understood from this episode that Dr. 
Webster is somewhat garrulus, like most other old 
men, he is by no means an exclusive laudator temporis 
acti, in the poet's sense of the phrase. On the contrary, 
I have seldom seen any man, even in the vigour of 
manhood, enter with more life and feeling into whatever 
was likely to promote the general amelioration of society 
and the progressive advancement of the human race. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 151 

The family of Edwards, the descendants of the vene- 
rable Jonathan, belong to New Haven. One of the 
grandsons of the great philosopher and divine was lately 
Governor of the State of Connecticut ; another is now 
a judge in New York, and I had the pleasure of meet- 
ing at Charleston with a third, a merchant from Canton, 
who resides at New Haven. 

I attended a meeting of the State Legislature of 
Connecticut, which happened to be in session, during 
the short period of my stay in New Haven. The 
population of the State is about 350,000. The number 
of members in its House of Representatives is 200, 
and the senate consists of about 22 members. The 
Representatives appeared for the most part respectable, 
intelligent New England farmers, and the whole pro- 
ceedings seemed to be conducted with great propriety 
and decorum. The subject before the House was that 
of arrest for debt, and the right feeling that evidently 
characterised the assembly on that important subject 
could not fail to have been gratifying in the highest 
degree to any honest man. The idea of imprisoning 
a man for debt merely was scouted by all the speakers ; 
the only question was whether the creditor should have 
the power of arrest, in so far as to oblige the debtor, 
whom he might suspect of unfair play, to go before 
a magistrate to exhibit such a statement of his affairs 
as would show whether he really was or was not an 
honest man. Mr. Sherman Baldwin,* an eminent 

* Mr. Sherman Baldwin is the grandson of Roger Sherman, one 
of the Members of Congress for Connecticut, who signed the Decla- 
ration of Independence. Mr. Sherman had originally been a shoe- 
maker. When earning his livelihood in this humble occupation, 
he happened to have a lawsuit with one of his neighbours, and on 
going to consult a lawyer on the subject he presented him with a 
written statement of the case which he had drawn up himself. The 
lawyer was a shrewd man, and at once discovered on reading the 
statement the shoemaker's forte, which, he told him, was not to 
make shoes, but to deal with matters of law. Mr. Sherman took 



152 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 






lawyer of Connecticut, took the affirmative on this 
question, and showed in a sober, business-like, and 
peculiarly luminous speech, which was listened to with 
profound attention, that if the law refused such a 
power, it would just be tantamount to rendering the 
State a general asylum for all the fraudulent debtors 
and swindlers of the Union. No honest man, he 
contended, could suffer from the power which the law 
already granted in the case ; no creditor could be safe 
if it were taken away ; and the character of the State, 
moreover, would in that case suffer materially in the 
estimation of their whole country. 

The case before the Senate, which appeared to con- 
sist chiefly of merchants of a higher class, and men of 
property, was a petition for a divorce, from the wife of a 
man who it seems had got himself into the State prison for 
felony. The divorce was applied for on the ground of 
the infamy to which the wife's connexion with such a 
person consigned herself and her children, and the 
miserable life they would otherwise be doomed to lead, 
on the liberation of her husband. The petition was 
supported with considerable volubility by a smart 
Senator, of rather youthful appearance, who frequently, 
and, as it seemed to me, quite in character, quoted 
Shakespeare as his favourite authority in matters of law. 
He was soon, however, put down by the graver members 
of the Senate, several of whom very briefly, but very 
pertinently, stated their opinions on the subject. I was 

the hint, and, having studied law, became in time not only one of 
the first lawyers, but one of the most eminent patriots and statesmen 
of his country. During the war of independence he happened to 
be the chairman of a committee of congress appointed to investigate 
certain charges of peculation in the Commissariat department ; and 
in presenting the Report of the Committee, he stated that it would 
be observed in perusing it that he had dwelt particularly on the 
article of sboes : the reason of this was simply that having been 
bred a shoemaker himself, it was the subject with which he might 
be supposed to be best acquainted. He had no idea of being ashamed 
of the gentle craft. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 153 

much pleased with the remarks of one of them. He 
stated that they had, in various instances, granted di- 
vorces ; but he had reason to believe they generally 
regretted it afterwards, as he was confident they had 
been influenced rather by their feelings than by their 
sense of propriety. The divorce was refused ; and I 
understood, in the course of the proceedings, that a 
somewhat similar application, which had come before 
the Senate the day before, had shared the same fate. 

I was much pleased at the good sense and the high 
moral feeling that seemed to characterise both branches of 
the Connecticut Legislature : and it struck me very forc- 
ibly, when sitting in the Halls of Legislation, that a go- 
vernment which rested for its support on not fewer than 
twenty-six little parliaments, like the one I then saw — • 
each exercising its distinct sovereignty in its own sepa- 
rate territory, and silently communicating to all the rest 
every improvement it had effected in the science of 
government — was not likely to be easily overthrown. 
A single successful insurrection in London or Paris 
would, at any time, be sufficient to overturn the govern- 
ments of Great Britain or France. But an insurrection 
at Washington, that might prove successful, for the 
moment, in overturning the existing government of the 
United States, would be absolutely powerless all over 
the Union. The insurgents would have twenty-six 
sovereign and independent States successively, and 
perhaps simultaneously, arrayed against them — States, 
whose interest it is to be united, and which it would be 
ruinous to dissever. 

It is a singular fact, in connexion with the subject 
of this digression, that the government of Connecticut 
has subsisted, without change or modification of any 
kind whatever, since it was first established, literally in 
the way of a social compact, by the Pilgrim Fathers, 
who first settled in the country upwards of two hundred 
years ago. Even at the Revolution, the governor and 



154 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

legislature were unanimous in declaring that George 
the Third had forfeited the rights of Sovereignty, and, 
in proclaiming their independence ; and with the single 
exception of substituting the name of the State, for that 
of His Majesty, the whole framework of the govern- 
ment, and the officers by whom it had been previously 
administered, in the king's name, remained the same 
thereafter as before. There is, therefore, something 
stable in America, notwithstanding the insatiable appe- 
tite for change and innovation with which the country 
has been so frequently reproached by superficial ob- 
servers. 

So simple are the manners of the people of this 
" land of steady habits," as Connecticut is usually de- 
signated in America, that the present governor, W. 
Ellsworth, Esq., is actually a practising barrister. He 
could not afford to give up his profession for the mo- 
derate emoluments of office ; and while he is, therefore, 
seen to-day receiving the deputations of the two 
branches of the legislature, to submit for his approval 
the enactments they have passed, he may be seen to- 
morrow pleading before a judge, who holds his appoint- 
ment under his own seal of office. Of course, he is 
precluded from appearing in any case in which he has 
jurisdiction as Governor. I mention this case for its 
singularity ; not to hold it up for imitation elsewhere. 
Indeed, I know of no other country in which such a 
thing could be practised with safety, much less with 
propriety. But the duties of each particular office are 
so well defined, and every person's official place in 
society is so well understood in Connecticut, that it 
occasions no surprise, no inconvenience. 

The population of New Haven is 13,000. The pro- 
vision for religious worship is as follows : — 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 



155 



Congregational Presbyterian Churches . 


5 


Episcopalian ...... 


2 


Methodist ..... 


. 2 


Baptist ...... 


. 1 


Roman Catholic .... 


. 1 


African ..... 


. 1 


Bethel Church for Seamen 


. 1 



Total 



13 



There is, therefore, in the city of New Haven, church 
accommodation afforded, under the voluntary system, 
at the rate of one place of worship for every thousand 
inhabitants, of all classes and ages. The principal 
Episcopal church is a handsome building, of Gothic 
architecture, with a square tower. The Congregational 
Presbyterian churches have generally tall spires, and 
look very much like parish churches in the county 
towns of Scotland. The Methodist and Baptist churches, 
in the United States generally, are less frequently 
adorned with either towers or spires ; but they are 
often built in the style of Grecian temples, with massy 
columns in front, and have nothing of the barn-like 
appearance that is so offensive to the eye of taste in 
the chapels of these communions in England. I have 
already observed, that there is only one Unitarian place 
of worship in Connecticut. It is not at New Haven. 

New York is the first of the Middle States to the 
southward of New England. Exclusive of Long Island, 
which is 150 miles in length, and is inhabited by a 
thickly-settled population, the State of New York is 
somewhat of the form of an isosceles triangle, having 
the south-eastern shore of the lakes of Canada and 
the river Niagara for its base, and the city of New 
York for its apex ; the base line and each of the sides 
of this triangle being at least 400 miles in length. Its 
superficial extent is 46,000 square miles — nearly as 



156 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

large as England ; and its population, judging from the 
usual rate of increase since the last census, must now 
be at least 2,300,000, nearly equal to that of Scotland. 
The Americans call it the Empire State ; and whether 
we regard the fertility of its soil, or the wonderful faci- 
lities it affords for foreign commerce and inland navi- 
gation, it well deserves the appellation. But I shall 
leave it to others to describe its beautiful bay, its noble 
river, its romantic highlands, and its blooming dales, 
and hasten to pourtray a few of those beauties that are 
still discoverable in its moral scenery, notwithstanding 
the ravings of Captain Marryat, — those beauties that 
are never observable but in immediate connexion with 
the churches of Christ. 

For a population, therefore, nearly as large as that 
of Scotland, inhabiting a country nearly equal in ex- 
tent to all England, there are 2250 ministers of reli- 
gion of all denominations in the State of New York ; 
and of these, I was informed by the Rev. Dr. Beman, 
of Troy, that one half are Presbyterians. Indeed, 
although the progress of colonization within the limits 
of this State, since the commencement of the present 
century, has been altogether unprecedented, the efforts 
that have been made by the different evangelical com- 
munions to supply " the mixed multitude" with the 
regular dispensation of the ordinances of religion have 
been truly astonishing, and such as may well put to 
the blush the fairest churches of Britain. The Rev. 
Dr. M'Auley, of whom I have already spoken, and 
whose zealous and indefatigable labours in the city of 
New York have been abundantly blessed, informed me 
that in the year 1798, when he first arrived in the 
country, there was only one Presbyterian minister 
settled in the State beyond either Albany or Utica, — I 
forget which. There are now upwards of three hundred 
and ninety, and many of these ministers supply three or 
four small churches, like the minister of Loch Broom. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 157 

In the year 1835, the population of the city of 
New York was ascertained to be 269,873. It is now 
estimated at 300,000. I have already observed that 
the substratum of this population consisted of Holland- 
ers and Huguenots. To use the language of geology, 
this substratum was overlaid with a thick bed of New 
Englanders ; and there has since been superinduced 
upon the whole surface an immense accumulation of 
diluvial rubbish from all nations. Still, however, the 
primitive and transition rocks of the Dutch and Puritan 
formations are ever and anon seen peering upwards 
amid the surrounding mass, and casting the shadow of 
their influence far around. To a foreigner arriving in 
New York on the morning of the Sabbath, and bearing 
in mind that, of all the cities of America, New York 
is the one to which the mauvais sujets, the men of 
broken fortunes and shattered character, from every 
large city in Europe, regularly resort, and to which, 
moreover, there is annually directed a large amount of 
semi-pauper emigration ; and observing, as he cannot 
fail to do, with astonishment, the stillness of the great 
city, and the regular church-going habits of the great 
majority of its population ; it must appear strikingly 
obvious that the moral and religious principles of the 
earlier inhabitants of the country must have been 
deeply seated, and permanent as well as powerful in 
their operation, to exercise so mighty an influence, as 
they have unquestionably done, over so heterogeneous 
a mixture of nations, in reducing the discordant mate- 
rials to habits of order and decorum. 

Before I had landed in New York, a French gentle- 
man of the Romish communion, who had resided many 
years in America, supposing that, as a foreigner, I 
would sympathise with him, told me " he had never seen 
so unsocial and fanatical a people as the inhabitants 
of New York, and especially the Presbyterians ; for 
instead of enjoying themselves on the Sunday after 



158 KESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

morning prayers, they kept moping in their houses all 
the rest of the day, neither visiting their friends nor 
receiving visits from them." An English gentleman, an 
Episcopalian, from London, with whom I also met in 
similar circumstances, confirmed this account, and 
added, that "of late the English and other foreigners in 
New York had determined to put this unsocial and 
fanatical spirit down, and to show the Americans they 
were not to dictate to them in these matters." In 
short, as M. de Tocqueville justly observes, although 
in a somewhat different spirit, " Nothing strikes a fo- 
reigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than 
the regard paid to the Sabbath."* And I need not 
inform the Christian reader, that the observance of the 
Sabbath may always be taken as the best test of the 
moral and religious character of any people. 

If the Americans were not a people who studied 
utility in every thing, one would imagine, from the 
number of churches of all communions in New York, 
that most of them had been built, like many in Lon- 
don, as well as elsewhere in this country, rather for 
ornament than for use. But the idea of a minister 
continuing to preach to bare walls, where there is no 
endowment to support him, independently of his con- 
gregation, is out of the question. If the people per- 
manently desert a particular place of worship, it must 
be sold, or pulled down, or converted to some other 
purpose. The Americans have but a very imperfect 
idea of holy ground, i, e. t of ground possessing the 
quality of inherent holiness. They reason in this way, 
and perhaps they have divine warrant for doing so, 
" The church was made for man, and not man for the 
church." 

The extent of church-accommodation in New York 
may be inferred from the following enumeration of 

* Democracy in America, 2nd Amer. edit, page 421. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 159 

the churches or other places of worship now belonging 
to the different religious denominations in the city ; — 

Presbyterian — American and smaller denomi- 
nations . . . . . .41 

Do. Dutch Reformed . . . .14 

Episcopal . . . . . .27 

Methodist — of various denominations . .18 

Baptist — including smaller denominations . 18 
Roman Catholic . . . . .8 

African' — (Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, Pres- 
byterian) ...... 9 

Friends' Meeting Houses . . . .5 

Lutheran . . . . . .3 

Moravian ....... 2 

Jews' Synagogues . . . . .3 

Unitarian ....... 2 

Universalist ...... 3 

German, Welsh, and smaller denominations 
not known ...... 4 

Mariners' Churches , . . . .2 



Total 159 



There is thus one place of worship in New York for 
every 1886 persons, young and old, of all classes of the 
population. The increase of the population during the 
present century has been unprecedented ; but the increase 
of church-accommodation for the different communions 
of the city has kept pace with it in the most remarkable 
manner. In the year 1809, for example, there were 
only three Presbyterian churches in the city, under the 
superintendence of the American General Assembly. 
There are now thirty-one. Many of these churches 
are large, and of an architecture that would bear com- 
parison with the best of our parish churches in Scot- 
land ; while not a few of them are fitted up internally 



160 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

in a style of elegance to which we are quite unaccus- 
tomed in this country. The Tabernacle church, in 
Broadway, which was built originally as a Free church, 
is the building in which the New York religious anni- 
versaries are held, and will contain upwards of three 
thousand persons. I have seen at least two thousand 
attending divine service in it myself on an ordinary 
occasion. The Mercer-street church, a recent erection, 
is in size, form, material, and internal arrangement, a 
fac-simile of St. John's church in Glasgow, of which 
the Rev. Dr. Chalmers was for some time pastor, with 
the exception of being fitted up internally in a much 
more costly style. Dr. M'Elroy's church in Grand- 
street, formerly of the Scotch Secession, but now under 
the General Assembly, cost 80,000 dollars, and the 
ground 35,000, or 115,000 dollars altogether — a sum 
equal to £24,437 10s. sterling. A manse or parsonage 
for the residence of the minister, has been erected at a 
cost of 21,000 dollars, and a school connected with the 
church, costing 8000. The congregation had derived a 
large portion of this fund from the sale of their former 
church-property, which was situated in a less eligible 
part of the city, and it was proposed by some of the 
members, at a meeting held to deliberate on the best 
mode of laying the money out, to expend a smaller 
amount on the church-buildings, and to form an en- 
dowment with the remainder for the support of the 
minister. To this, however, the older and more influ- 
ential members of the church were strongly opposed ; 
observing that " they had paid for the gospel all along 
themselves, and they desired that their children should 
do so also." The idea of an endowment was therefore 
abandoned, and the whole of their funds expended in 
the erection of their church and other ecclesiastical 
buildings. 

The churches of the Episcopalian and Dutch com- 
munions in New York can scarcely be adduced as 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 161 

an illustration of the working of the Voluntary System, as 
both of these communions, especially the former, possess 
extensive and valuable property in the city, from which 
they derive large amounts for the erection of churches, 
while the Presbyterian Church has no property what- 
ever. The salaries of the Episcopal clergy are, in part 
at least, derived also from the same source. Those of 
the Presbyterian clergy, who depend entirely upon their 
people, vary from £400 to £600 sterling per annum. 

In regard to the oft-reiterated assertion that " the 
Voluntary System makes no provision for the spiritual 
instruction of the poor,"* there is a singular proof to the 
contrary in New York ; where not fewer than seven 
Presbyterian churches have been successively erected 
during the last twelve or fifteen years, on the principle 
of charging nothing for pew-rent at all, and distributing 
the water of life " without money and without price " 
to the poorest in the land ; the salaries of the ministers 
of these churches being paid, and the other expenses 
of divine worship defrayed by a few philanthropic and 
Christian men, who look for no pecuniary return what- 
ever for their outlay, but whose reward is undoubtedly 
in heaven. It has been found, however, that this sys- 
tem has not answered the end proposed. Church ac- 
commodation, like education, is not valued even by 
the poor when it is not paid for ; and as no man of vir- 
tuous character and industrious habits in America can 
long be unable to pay for church accommodation, it is not 
to be expected that those who are of opposite character 
and habits will long continue to attend divine service at 
all. In the Broadway Tabernacle, or Sixth Presbyterian 
Free church, the pews in the area are now let to a regular 

* " There is another very strong objection, and a most important 
one, to the Voluntary System, which I have delayed to bring for- 
ward ; which is, that there is no provision for the poor in the Ameri- 
can Voluntary Church System. Thus only those who are rich 
and able to afford religion can obtain it." — Marryafs Diary, part i ; 
Amer. edit. p. 219. 

p 2 



162 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 






congregation, while those in the galleries remain free. 
I question, therefore, whether there has been anything 
like the amount of free church accommodation afforded 
to the poor in any city in Great Britain, in proportion 
to its size, that there has been for the last fifteen years 
under the Voluntary System in the city of New York. 
In other cities of the Union the same benevolent object 
is pursued by the different Evangelical communions — for 
it is nowhere lost sight of — in a different way. During 
my short stay in the city of Philadelphia, I had the 
pleasure of meeting with the Rev. J. Allen, a regularly 
ordained Episcopal clergyman, of a truly devoted and 
apostolic spirit, whose sole duty it was to search out 
and to administer the consolations of religion to the 
poor, the friendless, the sick and the dying in that great 
city, as the General Agent of the City Mission. Nay, so 
much is the duty of " remembering the poor," and pro- 
viding for their spiritual and eternal welfare, considered 
a necessary part of the duty of every Christian church 
in America, that even the Unitarians of Boston — and 
the reader has no reason to exclaim, Credat Judceus ! 
for it is a positive fact — have their City Mission too ! 
It is true that this mission has degenerated, as one 
would naturally expect such a mission should in their 
hands, into a mere secular course of lectures on Natural 
History and Science, illustrated with specimens and 
drawings, and so forth ; but the fact that it was thought 
necessary in such a quarter to get up a city mission at 
all — of course to save appearances and to be like other 
people — sufficiently demonstrates the universality of the 
practice of "remembering the poor," even under the 
Voluntary System in America. 

On the left bank of the Hudson, about seventy miles 
from New York, the rising town of Poughkeepsie — the 
American corruption of the Aboriginal name of an In- 
dian village — looks down from its eminence on the 
noble river. Dutchess county, in which it is situated, 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 163 

is one of the most fertile in the State of New York ; 
and, besides forming an outlet for the agricultural pro- 
duce of that county, Poughkeepsie has already become 
distinguished for its manufactures. Its population is 
9000. The number of its churches is as follows : — 



Presbyterian, including one Dutch 
Episcopal ...... 


. 3 
2 


Methodist ....... 

Quakers' Meeting Houses . 

Baptist ....... 

Unitarian ....... 

African ...... 


2 

. 2 
1 
1 

1 



Total . .12 

Or, one place of worship for every 750 persons of 
the entire population. The Dutch church is the 
largest in the place ; it is well endowed, and the con- 
gregation are about building a second. The congrega- 
tions of the four last denominations mentioned are very 
small. 

The only other place to which I shall refer for 
the amount of church accommodation, provided under 
the Voluntary System, in the State of New York, is the 
city of Troy, situated also on Hudson's River, about 
] 50 miles from New York city ; and I refer to the case 
of Troy in particular, for this reason, that as it has risen 
entirely out of the great American wilderness during 
the last twenty-five or thirty years, it cannot be said, as 
Captain Marryat pretends to do, most preposterously 
however, of New England, that its morality and religion 
are owing, in any degree, to its ante-revolution esta- 
blishment. The city of Troy is beautifully situated 
on the left bank of the noble river that empties its waters 
into the Bay of New York, with Mount Ida, dwindled, 
however, into a mere hill of very moderate elevation, 



164 



RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM, 



rising behind it. Being at the head of the navigation 
of the Hudson, and at the commencement of the Erie 
Canal, it forms a convenient entrepot for the rapidly in- 
creasing commerce of the Great Lakes, and has a large 
extent of fertile country besides in its immediate vi- 
cinity. It is a well planned, well built city, and con- 
tains a very large number, comparatively, of houses of 
a respectable exterior. Its present population is 
25,000, and the following is the amount of its church 
accommodation : — 



Presbyterian Churches 
Episcopal ..... 
Baptist ..... 
Methodist 


. 6 
. 3 

. 2 
. 2 


Quakers' Meeting House . . 
Roman Catholic . . . . 


. I 
. 1 



Total 



15 



That is, one place of worship for each 1666 persons 
of the whole population. These churches, and espe- 
cially those of the Presbyterian and Episcopal com- 
munions, are all of a most respectable appearance in 
point of architecture, and greatly superior, taken alto- 
gether, to what one would expect to find in any town 
of equal population in England. 

Having had the pleasure of meeting with the Rev. 
Dr. Beman, the pastor of the First Presbyterian church 
in Troy, during his visit to England in the summer of 
1839, I officiated for him on part of the Sabbath I 
spent in the city. Dr. B. and his brother, who is also 
a Presbyterian clergyman, are the sons of staunch Epis- 
copalians, and were both intended for the ministry in 
the Episcopal communion. During their college 
course, however, they both entered the Presbyterian 
church ; of which Dr. B., who is alike eminent for 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 165 

piety and talent, is now one of the most distinguished 
ministers. His congregation is the largest in the city, 
amounting to upwards of fifteen hundred persons ; and 
so highly have his labours been blessed among his 
people, that, at the last communion previous to my visit, 
he had admitted not fewer than seventy new communi- 
cants to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. 

Recent as the modern city of Troy is in its origin, 
Dr. Beman's church is, nevertheless, the second that 
his congregation have erected ; and I mention the cir- 
cumstance particularly, as it serves to throw some 
light on the nature and progress of American civiliza- 
tion. The first church was, probably, a wooden build- 
ing, of small dimensions and humble appearance, well 
suited, however, to the infancy of the settlement. In 
twenty years or thereby, this church had fully served its 
purpose, and was accordingly pulled down to make way 
for a better. The present edifice cost 40,000 dollars, 
or 8500/. It is built in the Grecian style, with a row 
of massive columns in front. The interior is hand- 
somely and even elegantly finished ; the dome and the 
recess behind the pulpit being finely painted in fresco. 
The basement story, besides affording the usual accom- 
modation for a lecture-room and Sabbath-school, con- 
tains two rooms commodiously fitted up as a study for 
the pastor. When the city of Troy was first settled, 
Mr. Van Der Heyden, the old Dutch Patroon, or lord 
of the manor, gave the Presbyterian church two build- 
ing allotments of ground in the city, in addition to what 
was required for the church itself. On the erection of 
the new church, these allotments were sold, that the 
congregation might be under no temptation to form a 
permanent endowment for the pastor, which the Ame- 
rican Presbyterians now almost uniformly regard as a 
permanent evil. Dr. B.'s salary is 2000 dollars per an- 
num. It is raised, as those of the Presbyterian clergy 
in America generally are, by a voluntary assessment of 
six per cent, on the original price of the pews. The 



166 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

law in America would, doubtless, compel the payment 
of such an assessment, when once agreed to, just as it 
does the fulfilment of any other lawful contract between 
man and man ; but the thing is unheard of: any man 
would be disgraced in society who should refuse to pay 
his pew-rent ; any minister would lose caste, even in 
his own order, who should resort to such means of en- 
forcing payment. In short, as the Roman historian 
observes of the ancient Germans, "good morals are more 
influential among the Americans than the best laws 
elsewhere." 



Vindice nullo, 
Sponte sua, sine lege, fides rectumque coluntur. 



At the same time, it often happens, that when fami- 
lies, svho have occupied a pew in a church, experience 
reverses of fortune, and become really unable to pay 
their proper rate, they are silently passed over by the 
church managers, and their proportion made good from 
the general funds of the congregation. I was told of a 
church in one of the American cities, in which some of 
the best pews were occupied by families in reduced 
circumstances, who paid no pew-rent at all. The pre- 
ceding generation of these families had, in more favour- 
able circumstances, been eminent supporters of the 
church ; and it was deemed unworthy of the congrega- 
tion to require them to give up the pews they had occu- 
pied in such circumstances, merely because they had 
become poor. 

The city of Newark, in the state of New Jersey, 
has a population of about 30,000. The following is 
its amount of church accommodation : — 

Presbyterian Churches, including one Dutch 7 
Methodist . . . . . . .3 

Baptist ....... 2 

Episcopal ....... 1 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION, 



167 



Bethel Church for Seamen 

African 

Universalist 

Roman Catholic 



Total 



17 



New Jersey, from having been settled chiefly from 
Scotland, has all along been one of the most thoroughly 
Presbyterian States in the Union, 

The population of Philadelphia, the chief city of the 
great State of Pennsylvania, amounted, in the year 
1830, to 167,811, It is now estimated at 200,000. 
The following is. the number of the churches in this 
city :— 



Presbyterian, including three African 

Episcopal, „ one African 

Methodist, „ three African 

Baptist, „ three African 

Quakers, „ four Orthodox 

Roman Catholic 

Lutheran 

Moravian . 

Independent 

Unitarian . 

Christian Society 

Universalists 

Philadelphia Christians 

Reformed Episcopal 

Bible Christians 

Mariner's Church 

United States Naval Asylum Chapel 

Jews' Synagogue 



35 
19 
26 

18 
8 
6 
4 



Total 



128 




168 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

Many of these churches are large handsome struc- 
tures both externally and internally ; some of them 
being built entirely of Pennsylvania marble. As to 
attendance, the congregation present in the First Pres- 
byterian church, Washington-square, where I attended 
divine service twice during my stay in Philadelphia, 
must have amounted at all events to 1500 persons: 
and the congregations of the Rev. H. Boardman, and 
the Rev. Dr. Cuyler, also of the Presbyterian Com- 
munion, and the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of the Episcopal 
Church, appeared to be almost equally numerous. Dr. 
Cuyler's church is of marble, and the interior is fitted 
up in a style of corresponding elegance. Very few of 
these churches, however, have either spires or towers. 
Indeed, there is a strange dislike to all erections of this 
kind, of which the direct utility is not apparent, in the 
Quaker city ; the view of which from the only remark- 
able eminence in its vicinity, the reservoir of the noble 
waterworks on the Schuylkill river, consequently pre- 
sents to the eye as dead a level as can well be 
conceived. At the same time, the more recently 
erected divisions of the city, in which the basement 
story of the houses, the steps in front, the door-posts 
and lintel, and the window sills are all of white marble, 
have an air of lightness and elegance quite attractive. 
The effect of this species of architecture is much 
heightened by the practice common to most American 
cities, of having a row of trees on each side of the 
street at the edge of the trottoir, or pavement ; the 
beautiful green foliage of which not only contrasts 
agreeably with the buildings on either side, but affords 
a most delightful shade in a hot summer's day. In 
North and South Carolina, the tree generally employed 
for this purpose is the pride of India, a tree which 
grows luxuriantly in the poorest soil, and is equally 
grateful to the eye from the beauty of its foliage and to the 
whole system from the refreshing coolness of its shade. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 169 

The churches of the Dutch Reformed Communion, 
in America, are generally furnished with organs, A 
considerable number of the Presbyterian churches have 
instrumental music also. I should certainly not object 
very strongly to the use of the organ in divine service, if 
it were used merely to guide and to accompany the 
human voice, although at the same time I consider it 
quite unnecessary ; but when it is so used, either with 
or without a choir of professional singers, as in great 
measure to supersede the singing of the congregation, 
I cannot help regarding it as a positive evil, and a dan- 
gerous innovation. I thought there was too much of 
this in some of the churches in which I attended divine 
service, both in Philadelphia and elsewhere. There 
was silence in the church, and I heard a voice from the 
organ gallery. Now, there certainly is such a passage 
in Scripture as " Praise the Lord with the organ ;" but 
there is surely no such passage as " Let the organ 
praise God." In the Thirteenth Presbyterian Church, 
of which the congregation consists chiefly of persons of 
Scotch or Irish origin, and in which, I am happy to 
state, the number of communicants is from 600 to 700, 
I was much more gratified at the simple melody of the 
congregation, the whole of which joined heartily in the 
devotional parts of the service, than at the choicest 
performance of the organ elsewhere. The pastor of 
the Thirteenth Church is the Rev. Mr. Tudehope, 
formerly a minister of the Relief Church in Annandale, 
in Scotland. Mr. T.'s congregation had just lost their 
church, at the time I refer to, in a very singular way. 
It had been erected for the congregation, in pursuance 
of the will of a Mrs. Duncan, one of its former 
members, to belong to the communion of the Associate 
Presbyterian Synod, to which the congregation had 
then also belonged. But a large majority of that 
Synod, including the representatives of the congrega- 
tion for whom the church was erected by Mrs. Duncan, 

Q 



170 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

having subsequently resolved to dissolve their body, 
and to unite with the General Assembly of the Ame- 
rican Presbyterian Church, the small minority who were 
opposed to the union re-organized their synod, after its 
dissolution, and brought an action against Mr. Tude- 
hope's congregation, for the possession of their church, 
on the ground of its original destination. The decision 
of the Court was against the congregation ; but, so far 
from being at all disconcerted at their loss, the latter 
immediately commenced a subscription for the erection 
of another church, which they had, accordingly, very 
nearly completed, of a much superior architecture, and 
in a much more eligible situation, at the period of my 
visit. 

Perhaps there is no city in the world better supplied 
with water than Philadelphia. Previous to the intro- 
duction of this great purifier, the city used to be visited 
occasionally with yellow fever. There has been no 
visitation of that disease, however, since the completion 
of the Schuylkill water-works. These works owe their 
existence to the inventive ingenuity of a New Eng- 
lander ; who, at a bend of the river, where the stream is 
diverted by a ledge of rocks, running in an oblique 
direction across its channel, availed himself of these 
rocks to form a permanent dike or dam, thereby throw- 
ing a large portion of the stream, or rather the whole 
of it, when the river is low, upon a series of water- 
wheels, by the motion of which the water is forced up, 
by very simple machinery, through a series of pumps, 
into a large reservoir, situated on the summit of a 
hill in the neighbourhood. It was an admirable idea, 
and not less admirably executed. But there are no 
people who understand, so well as the Americans, the 
means of availing themselves of the advantages of water- 
power. 

The churches in Philadelphia are at present served 
by resident ministers, in the following proportions, viz. :-— 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 171 



Presbyterian .... 


. 


. 35 


Episcopalian .... 


. 


. 19 


Roman Catholic (bishop, priests, 


and as- 




sistants) . 


. 


. 13 


Methodist .... 


. 


. 25 


Baptist (three churches vacant) 


. 


. 14 


Lutheran .... 


. 


4 


Smaller denominations 


. 


. 14 



Total . . . .124 

There is, therefore, in the city of Philadelphia, a 
place of worship, and a resident pastor, for every 1562 
persons, young and old, of all denominations ; and it is 
not to be denied, moreover, that the whole of this ample 
provision for the religious instruction of the community 
has been made solely through the Voluntary System ; 
for there was never any civil establishment of religion 
in Pennsylvania, from the very first. Now, I appeal 
to the intelligent reader, whether there is any parallel 
to such a provision in any of the great cities of our own 
country. The cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow are, 
perhaps, better supplied with the ordinances of religion, 
than any of the other large cities of the British empire ; 
but knowing the state of these cities well, I am confident 
1 speak the truth when I assert, that neither of them will 
stand a moment's comparison, in this most important 
respect, with the city of Philadelphia.* 

* During my stay in Philadelphia, I visited the library and 
other rooms of the American Philosophical Society ; which was in- 
stituted, I believe, at the instance of the celebrated Benjamin 
Franklin. Franklin's own library-chair is still preserved in the 
Committee-room, and is always occupied by the chairman, at the 
meetings. It is an old high-backed arm-chair, stuffed, and covered 
with black leather, now much tarnished. T was amused at a sin- 
gular peculiarity in its construction, remarkably characteristic of its 
original owner. I observed that the apron of the chair, or the bar in 
front, reached somewhat lower than usual, and was wondering why it 



172 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

The instances I have hitherto given of the working 
of the Voluntary System in America have been taken 
from the free States, where the people are universally 
educated, and highly intelligent. I shall now give an 
instance, also, from each of the four Slave States, of 
Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas. And as I 
have thus far dealt chiefly in large cities, I shall select 
two of these instances from second or third rate towns. 

The city of Baltimore, in Maryland, contained, at 
the census of 1830, a population of 80,625. Its po- 
pulation is now estimated at 100,000. One- fourth of 
this amount is of African origin, and one-fourth are 
Roman Catholics — partly native Americans, but chiefly 
Irish and Germans. Baltimore is beautifully situated on 
the Patapsco river, which, like the Delaware, the Po- 
tomac, and James' River in Virginia, empties itself 
into the great inland sea, called the Chesapeake Bay. 
Its trade consists chiefly in the exportation of flour and 
tobacco ; and the vessels that are employed in the 
latter of these branches of trade, between Baltimore 
and the German ports, regularly return to the United 
States with whole cargoes of the smoking population of 
Germany. About 100,000 Germans have arrived, in 
this manner, in Baltimore, during the last eight years, 
or 12,500 per annum ; of whom, according to the Rev. 
Dr. Schmucker, President of the Lutheran Theological 
Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, one- third are 
Roman Catholics. The German population of Balti- 
more, as well as of Maryland generally, is therefore 

had been so awkwardly constructed, when the librarian, John 
Vaughan, Esq., a most interesting old gentleman — an octogenarian, 
but still a perfect devotee of literature and science, who remembers 
Franklin, and all the other American worthies, perfectly — showed 
me that the bottom of the chair moved upon a pivot, and that, when 
turned up against the back, it formed a ladder, by means of steps 
fixed to it beneath, to enable the philosopher to reach the higher 
shelves of his library, without being incommoded with an additional, 
and somewhat inelegant, piece of furniture in the room. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 173 

very considerable. I am sorry, however, I neglected, 
when on the spot, to ascertain particularly the amount 
of church accommodation for this part of the popula- 
tion, as well as for the smaller communions generally, 
with the exception of a Unitarian congregation, whose 
place of worship I happened to pass. 

The principal denominations are as follows : — 

Methodist Churches . . . . .15 

Do. African ...... 4 

Episcopalian . , . . . .6 

Presbyterian, including one African . . 6 

Roman Catholic, including a cathedral . . 6 

Baptist ....... 4 

Unitarian ....... 1 

Total 42 

Deducting, therefore, the Roman Catholics and their 
six places of worship, and estimating the Protestant 
Germans, who are sufficiently numerous in Baltimore to 
have a religious newspaper of their own, called " The 
Lutheran Observer," at fifteen thousand, there will re- 
main, independently of the places of worship of the 
smaller denominations, (the number of which I did not 
ascertain,) thirty-six churches for 60,000 souls ; or one 
for each 1666 persons. 

The Methodists are now by far the most numerous 
denomination in what was once the Roman Catholic 
State of Maryland. Their churches have a much more 
respectable appearance, both externally and internally, 
than the Methodist chapels generally in England. 
There happened to be divine service in one of them 
on a week-day evening, when I was spending a day 
in the city on my return to it from Charleston, and I 
embraced the opportunity of attending. I was much 
pleased with the discourse. It was a plain, practical, 

Q 2 



174 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

evangelical appeal to the understanding and the heart ; 
in which there was an absence of every thing like ex- 
travagance and fanaticism ; and the congregation w r as 
evidently of a higher standing in society than that of 
the generality of the members of Wesleyan congrega- 
tions in England. The African Methodist Churches are 
large and well attended. One of them, I was told, had 
not fewer than four preachers attached to it ; and they 
hold their distinct Annual Conference at the same time 
with the whites. I happened to pass the African church 
in which the Conference was to be held the day fol- 
lowing, on my return from divine service in the White 
Man's Church. I found a number of negroes and mu- 
lattoes busily engaged in washing and cleaning it for 
the occasion. It was a brick building, of highly credit- 
able appearance, both externally and internally ; much 
more so indeed than hundreds of the barn-like places 
of worship we meet with in the villages of the mother 
country. 

A gentleman accustomed to such calculations in- 
formed me that the average cost of the churches of all 
denominations in Baltimore might be estimated at 
25,000 dollars each. Some have cost as high as 
100,000 and upwards. The second Presbyterian 
church, of which the Rev. Dr. Robert Breckinridge is the 
pastor, cost this amount, including the cost of the 
manse and ground. The First Presbyterian church must 
have been a still costlier building, although not quite 
so large, as the Second will easily accommodate 1500 
persons. 

I happened to arrive in the town of Fredericksburgh, 
in Virginia, on a Tuesday evening ; having descended 
the Potomac river for about seventy miles from the city 
of Washington in a steam-boat, and then crossed over 
in a stage-coach for about ten miles to the commence- 
ment of the great Southern railroad, at the head of the 
navigation of the Rappahannock river, on which Fred- 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 175 

ericksburgh is situated. The stage-coaches had been 
delayed a few minutes beyond their usual time, and 
the Locomotive had started with the mail before our 
arrival ; we had consequently to remain at Fredericks- 
burgh all night. The population of this town is from 
4000 to 5000, and for that population there are four places 
of worship, viz. of the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Metho- 
dist, and Baptist communions. The Presbyterian church 
is the largest of the four. Both it and the Episcopal 
church are furnished with spires, of a very creditable ap- 
pearance. I walked out in the evening to see the town, 
and found a considerable congregation, amounting to 
about 150 persons, assembled for divine service in the 
lecture-room of the Presbyterian church — a large and 
commodious room, fitted up expressly for such week- 
day services, in the basement story of the building. 
The pastor of the church is a Dr. Wilson, but it was 
a stranger,, whose name I did not ascertain, who was 
officiating. I was too late for the text, but the object 
of the part of the discourse I heard, was to press upon 
the audience the important truth, that if they were living 
merely in a state of unconcern and indifference about 
their spiritual and eternal welfare, however they might 
stand with the world, they were not only liable to the 
wrath of God, but condemned already. The preacher 
concluded with a most earnest and affectionate exhor- 
tation to all present to examine themselves as to 
whether they were not really in such a situation ; and 
if they were, to lose not a moment in escaping from it, 
and to use every means they could employ to urge it 
upon their friends and relations, and all whom they 
could influence, to escape also. 

After passing through the city of Richmond, the 
capital of Virginia, a city containing a population of 
30,000 souls, delightfully situated at the head of the 
navigation of James' River ; and crossing that river at 
the Falls on a wooden bridge, erected in the first style 



176 



RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 



of American architecture, the great Southern railroad 
leads on to Petersburgh, a busy commercial town of 
15,000 inhabitants, beautifully situated, also, at the 
head of the navigation of the river Appomattox. From 
thence; diverging somewhat to the eastward, and passing 
through a considerable portion of the State of Virginia, 
it strikes the Roanoke river in North Carolina. Rich- 
mond and Petersburgh afford results, in regard to church 
accommodation, precisely similar to those I have already 
detailed, and it would only occupy the reader's time to 
no purpose to enter into particulars respecting them. 

From Roanoke to Wilmington, North Carolina, the 
rail-road traverses the low, barren, swampy country I 
have already described, as bounding the Atlantic ocean 
in that part of America ; the land being as level, for 
the most part, as a bowling-green, and the course of the 
road for fifty miles and upwards on a stretch, as straight 
as an arrow. It is flanked on either side by gloomy 
Cypress trees, growing often in the midst of stagnant 
water ; or, where the land happens to be a little higher, 
by the Carolina pine, of which millions are tapped an- 
nually by the woodmen, in the same way as the sugar- 
maple, for its sap, to form turpentine. 

The distance from Roanoke to Wilmington is 1 6 1 \ 
miles. There is only one track on the line, and the 
road is formed in a much less costly style than the rail- 
roads in England. The festivities on its completion had 
just been held at Wilmington, the day I arrived at its 
southern terminus. Having afterwards had the pleasure 
of meeting with General Owen, an elder of the Pres- 
byterian Church at Wilmington, and Chairman of the 
Railway Company, I took the liberty to ask him what 
might have been the cost of its construction ? The 
General replied that it had cost exactly 7500 dollars per 
mile. This may appear incredible in England, where a 
railroad costs, I believe, 15,000/. sterling per mile : but 
the land, in such situations in America, costs nothing, 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 177 

and the rails are laid on wooden sleepers, the timber 
for which is procured upon the spot, and costs nothing 
more than the labour. At regular distances along the 
road, there are stopping-places, where a double-line is 
laid for a little way to enable the cars travelling in op- 
posite directions to pass each other ; and as there 
are comparatively few cars travelling on so long a 
route, it is not difficult so to arrange their hours 
of arrival and departure at these stations, as to pre- 
vent their meeting each other on the single line. 
When this happens, however, as is sometimes the case, 
one of the engines has to move back with its train to 
the last turn-off. They are prohibited, by an Act of 
Congress, from travelling at a more rapid rate than fifteen 
miles per hour. It struck me very forcibly, in travelling 
along this line, that it would be comparatively easy to 
establish similar lines of communication over a vast ex- 
tent of country in New Holland, and I have no doubt it 
will be done very soon. The timber of that country is 
equally abundant, and is far better suited for such pur- 
poses than the American pine ; and in those seasons of 
drought, to which the Australian colonies are so pecu- 
liarly subject, and during which communication with the 
interior is almost entirely cut off, from the difficulty of 
procuring subsistence for beasts of burden, a railroad 
communication would be of greater importance to the 
population than perhaps in any other part of the world. 
The town of Wilmington, North Carolina, is situated 
at the head of a long inlet formed by the embouchure 
of the Cape Fear river, which is navigable from thence 
by steam-boats and small coasting vessels to Fayette- 
ville. Its trade consists almost entirely in the expor- 
tation of sawn timber, turpentine, and tar. There are 
a few cotton plantations on the coast, but they are nei- 
ther numerous nor important. There are five steam 
saw-mills at Wilmington, each of which cuts 10,000 
feet of timber daily. The proprietor of one of them, 
Mr. Law, one of the elders of the Presbyterian church, 



178 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

was travelling to Washington, on my return to the north- 
ward, to procure a patent for a machine he had just 
invented, and found to answer remarkably well, for the 
manufacture of staves. The machine, it seems, takes 
up a rough billet of wood, and turns it out a perfectly 
formed stave, with all its requisites. The formation of 
the railroad has as yet been too recent to influence the 
population of Wilmington materially, although it will 
doubtless do so very soon. It amounts at present to 
four thousand ; and for this population there is an Epis- 
copal, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Baptist church ; 
the Episcopal church and congregation being the largest 
of the four. The Episcopal church is a handsome struc- 
ture, with a tower of massive architecture, and will con- 
tain about a thousand persons. It is just finished. The 
Presbyterian church has been built about twenty years. 
It has a neat spire, and will contain about eight hundred 
persons. The Baptist church has a square tower or 
belfry, but is not quite so large ; the Methodist church 
being rather a more humble edifice than the others, and 
attended chiefly by the coloured population. 

I arrived in Wilmington on a Thursday evening. 
There was divine service in the Methodist church ; for 
week-day evening services are common to all denomina- 
tions in iVmerica, and people would be thought no Chris- 
tians at all, in most parts of the country, if they wor- 
shipped God publicly only on the Sabbath. It was 
a beautiful moonlight evening, and in walking along 
through the town, I could not help feeling gratified ex- 
ceedingly, even in that land of slavery, at the groupes of 
negroes I beheld in all directions, amusing themselves 
in various ways on the public streets with obstreperous 
mirth ; for the Father of mercies does not withhold his 
proper meed of enjoyment even from the slave. At 
nine o'clock, the town bell, which was suspended from a 
tree — the town-house and a large part of the town hav- 
ing been burnt down a few months before — was rung, 
and immediately the negroes disappeared. I continued 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 179 

my walk, however, through the now solitary streets — for 
the Americans are early risers and go early to bed — and on 
hearing the sound of solemn words, as I passed a hum- 
ble cottage of wood, I paused for a moment to listen, 
and ascertained, with deep emotion, that it w 7 as the fa- 
ther of a negro family offering up his evening devotions 
to Him " who hath made of one blood all the nations 
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth" — ex- 
pressing, in humble but appropriate language, his heart- 
felt thankfulness for the mercies of the day, and soliciting 
the fatherly protection of the Almighty for himself and 
his household during the silence of the night. 

Dreary as is the condition of slavery, it sometimes 
affords opportunities for the exercise of the most ex- 
alted benevolence. Upwards of thirty years ago, a 
Moorish negro, of the Foulah nation, who had been 
kidnapped on the west coast of Africa, was carried to 
America, and sold as a slave. He had been a prince 
in his own country, and had received a superior educa- 
tion ; being able to read and write the Arabic language 
with fluency and correctness. Disdaining the servile 
employment to which he was destined, he twice escaped 
from his master, and on being apprehended the second 
time in the w T oods, was lodged in the gaol of Charleston 
as a good-for-nothing and incorrigible offender. Hav- 
ing heard something of his case and history, General 
Owen, whom I have already mentioned, purchased him, 
while yet in gaol, from his master, who was glad to get 
rid of him on any terms ; and taking him home with 
him to North Carolina, treated him kindly, had him 
taught English, and instructed in the Christian religion, 
allowing him in the mean time to live as he pleased. 
Umorro, for this was the Moorish negro's name, finally 
renounced the Koran, in the principles of which he had 
been well instructed, and embraced Christianity ; and 
the Rev. Mr. Eels, the pastor of the Presbyterian 
church to which he belongs,informed me he had been one 
of the most pious and consistent Christians he had ever 



ISO RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

known. A few years ago one of the agents of the Ame- 
rican Colonization Society expressed his desire that 
Umorro should return to Africa, where he thought he 
might be useful in extending the knowledge of our holy 
religion among his own kindred, and in conciliating their 
friendship to the American missionaries. But Umorro 
could not be persuaded to emigrate. He preferred, 
even to the land of his birth, the land in which he had 
been born again, and resolved to live and die in Ame- 
rica. On my return from Charleston, I preached in 
the Presbyterian church at Wilmington, and had Umorro 
for one of my most attentive hearers. On the Monday 
morning thereafter, he paid me a visit before the train 
started for the North, and brought me a copy of the 
twelve last verses of the Book of Revelation, which he 
had transcribed for me, as a memorial of our short ac- 
quaintance, from his Arabic Bible. 

The Episcopal church at Wilmington cost 20,000 
dollars, or upwards of 5000/. The former edifice had 
been erected by the British authorities previous to the 
Revolution, and had been used as a block-house during 
the war. It was long in a ricketty condition, and the 
vestry had been for years talking about getting a new 
one, but " doing nothing in it" all the while, to use the 
language of Governor Fletcher. At length the Rev. Mr. 
Drain, the rector, who told me the circumstance 
himself, proposed to take the matter into his own hands. 
This was gladly acceded to by the vestry ; and accord- 
ingly calling successively on the humbler portion of his 
congregation, before asking any of the wealthier to sub- 
scribe at all, Mr. D. showed the latter what the others 
had contributed — a comparatively large amount — and 
thereby induced them to give considerably more than 
they would otherwise have done ; for it is true in Ame- 
rica, as well as elsewhere, that it is not always those 
who are ablest who give most for such purposes. Mr. 
Drain is a highly evangelical clergyman — I am sorry to 
add, almost the only one of his own communion in 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 181 

North Carolina — and is much and deservedly re- 
spected. 

The Presbyterian church in Wilmington was burnt the 
year after it was first erected, and the pastor having gone 
to Charleston to solicit assistance in re-building it, had 
received, among others, a letter of introduction to a re- 
spectable merchant of the Jewish persuasion, in that 
city ; not expecting, however, that a Jew would contri- 
bute for the re building of a Christian church* But 
the merchant volunteered a subscription of his own 

accord ; observing to the clergyman, " Mr. , I un* 

derstand your church has been burned down, and that 
you are raising funds to build another. Tell my friend, 
Mr. Lazarus, to put a roof upon the new one, and 
charge it to me." The present Presbyterian church 
at Wilmington was therefore roofed at the expense of 
a Jew. Indeed, there is every where observable in 
America a degree of good feeling and brotherly-kind- 
ness among the members of different religious commu- 
nions towards each other, that we seldom meet with in 
this country — where the churchman too often regards 
himself as a sort of Brahmin or member of a higher 
caste, and the dissenter as a contemptible Pariah ; and 
where the latter too often also regards the churchman 
with feelings of alienation and hostility, as being pos- 
sessed of exclusive privileges and immunities, to which 
he has in reality no better title than himself. The 
effect which the mere removal of this invidious distinc- 
tion, and the consequent equalization of all classes of 
the community, produce upon the peace of society, and 
the manifestation of kindly feeling between man and 
man, which is the general result, are truly astonishing. 
A meeting of a Presbytery requiring to be held during 
my stay in America, in a town in Virginia, where the 
Presbyterian church was inconveniently situated for the 
purpose, an offer was immediately made to the Presby- 
tery of their respective places of worship, by the Epis- 



182 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

copalian, Baptist, and Methodist communions of the 
place. I could not help thinking at the time, that such 
a circumstance could scarcely have occurred in the 
mother country ; and yet, the members of these different 
communions in America are as firmly and as conscien- 
tiously attached to their respective peculiarities, as any 
Christians can be in England. 

From all I could learn from others, as well as from 
the result of my own observations, I am satisfied that 
the towns of Wilmington and Fredericksburgh are a fair 
specimen, in regard to their amount of church-accom- 
modation, and their provision for the sustentation of the 
ordinances of religion, of all the towns and villages of 
North Carolina and Virginia. In one part of the 
country one denomination predominates ; in another, 
another ; but I have never seen a single country village 
in America without its church, of some denomination or 
other. It is the number of these buildings, and their 
respectable appearance, considering the circumstances 
of many a neighbourhood, and not their paucity or their 
paltry character, that strike the foreigner with astonish- 
ment when travelling in the United States of America. 

Having been twice in the Brazils, — at Rio Janeiro 
and at Pernambuco, — and having witnessed in these 
localities what the united energies of the two greatest 
enemies of humanity, — I mean Popery and slavery, — 
could accomplish to depress, to degrade, and to brutalize 
our species, I confess I was somewhat curious to ob- 
serve the state of things in the famous city of Charles- 
ton, the capital of the Slave State of South Carolina. 
To my no small surprise, therefore, I still found myself, 
on my arrival in that city by the steam-boat from Wil- 
mington, in the midst of a peaceful, orderly, church-going 
people. The amount of church-accommodation, which 
I subjoin, provided of course under the Voluntary Sys- 
tem, bears indirect, and therefore the best, evidence of 
the fact. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 183 

The city of Charleston has much more the appear- 
ance of an English town than most of the American 
cities, and its puhlic buildings, — its churches especially, 
— are of large dimensions and substantial architecture. 
It is built on a point of land stretching out to seaward 
between the Astley and Cooper rivers, whose embou- 
chure forms the Bay of Charleston ; the part of the city, 
which is situated beyond what constituted its original 
boundary, being called The Neck. The bay of Charles- 
ton is protected to seaward at a distance of about six 
miles by Sullivan's island, a mere sand bank, to which 
the wealthier inhabitants of Charleston generally re- 
sort for summer quarters, when the pestilential malaria 
from the surrounding marshy country renders the city 
uninhabitable to all but the natives. Charleston is very 
nearly in the same latitude as Sydney, in New South 
Wales, in the Southern Hemisphere. But no two 
climates can be more dissimilar. The cold in winter 
and the heat in summer are much greater in Charleston 
than in Sydney ; and while the climate of the Australian 
town is the very extreme of aridity, the humidity of the 
climate in the American city is inconceivable to those 
who have not witnessed its effects. I met a Scotch 
convict in the streets of Charleston, who, after having, 
by a course of penal service in New South Wales, ob- 
tained conditional freedom in the colony as a reward 
for his good conduct, and attained a tolerably good bu- 
siness as a general dealer in the town of Sydney, had 
nevertheless made his escape to America, merely be- 
cause he was not wholly free and could not leave the 
colony, like other people, when he chose. He told me 
he bitterly regretted the step he had taken, for he could 
now neither return to New South Wales nor to Scot- 
land, and was therefore under greater restraint than 
ever. He had been some time both in New York and 
Philadelphia, and had met a considerable number of 
British convicts in the United States, who, like himself, 



J84 



RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 



2800* 

2000 

2000 



had escaped thither from New South Wales. They are 
very kind, it seems, to each other. 

The population of Charleston, hy the census of 1830, 
amounted to 30,289. It is now estimated at 40,000 ; 
and of these one half are of African origin. The 
church accommodation for this population is as follows *. 

Episcopal Churches. 

Pastors, Dollars. 

St. Michael's Rev. Mr. Spear . . . Ann. Sal. 2500 
St. Philip's . Rev. Dr. Gadsden, 

Bishop of S. Carolina 
St. Paul's . Rev. Mr. Hanckel . . 
St. Peter's . Rev. Mr. Barnwell . . 

f Recent erec- 
St. Stephen's Rev. Mr. Trapier J tionsinthesub- 
St. Thomas's Rev. Mr. Howard j urbs, supposed 

(^salary each . . 1500 
Presbyterian Churches, 
Pastors. 
First Presbyterian, 
or Old Scots 

church .... Rev. Mr. Forrest 
Second ditto . . . Rev. Mr. Smythe 
Third ditto .... Rev. Mr. Dana . 
Circular ditto . . Rev. Dr. Post . 
Mariners' ditto . . Rev. Mr. Yates . 



Dollars. 



Ann. Sal. 2500 

„ 2000 

1500 

2500 

1000 



French Protestant 

church .... vacant „ 2000 

German Lutheran 

church .... Rev. Dr. Bachman „ 2500 

Baptist Rev. Dr. Brantly . „ 2000 

Unitarian .... Rev. Mr. Gilman . „ 2250 

Methodist Churches. 

Four, — of which the pastors are subject to a some- 

* Dr. Gadsden, who lias just been elected Bishop, derives either 
800 or 1300 dollars of this amount from the State Episcopal Fund. 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 18.5 

what different arrangement in regard to their salaries, 
but are equally well paid with the other clergy. 

Roman Catholic Churches. 
St. Finbar's, Rev. Dr. England (Bp.) Salary not known. 
St. Mary's. 
A third church in the suburbs. 

Jews' Synagogue. 
A handsome building, nearly finished, the former one 
having been burnt in the last great fire— in 1838. 

There is therefore in the city of Charleston one 
church or place of worship for every 1734 persons of 
the entire population. I question whether even my native 
town of Greenock, in Scotland, of which the population 
is nearly equal to that of Charleston, is better supplied 
in this respect, whether as regards church-room or an 
efficient Protestant ministry.* I am quite sure at all 
events that the amount of clerical duty performed by 
the evangelical ministers of all denominations, even 
under the burning sun and in the deadly climate of 
Charleston, is at least equal to that performed by the 
ministers of Greenock — and there are no men more ex- 
emplary than they are in Scotland — for in addition to 
the stated services of the Sabbath, every Evangelical 
Church in Charleston has its lecture-room, which is, in 

* The following is a statement of the amount of church accom- 
modation in a few of the larger cities of England, extracted from 
the speech of E. Baines, Esq., M.P. for Leeds, on the recent mor 
tion of Sir R. H. Inglis, M.P., in favour of Church Extension. 
It will he seen from it, that the proportion of church accommoda- 
tion to the population in the six English is greatly below what it is 
in the twelve American cities. 



PL 


of Worship. 


Population. 






Liverpool 


75 


for 


168,175, 


or one for 


2242 


Manchester 


100 


55 


272,761 




2726 


Birmingham 


64 


55 


146,986 


55 


2296 


Leeds 


38 


55 


82,121 


55 


2055 


Sheffield 


40 


55 


71,720 


55 


1793 


Nottingham 


28 


I") 


55,680 
R 2 


55 


1988 



186 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

reality, merely a separate and smaller church be- 
longing to the large one, and appropriated exclusively 
to Sabbath evening and week-day services, for which the 
church itself would be too large for the congregation. 
The lecture-room of the Second Presbyterian church in 
Charleston is a separate building situated in the centre 
of the city, half a mile from the church, and cost 
10,000 dollars, that is upwards of 2000/. The whole 
property of this church, including ground and buildings, 
cost 140,000 dollars altogether. The lecture-room of 
the Third Presbyterian church is a building of similar 
form, and is also in the same populous neighbourhood, at a 
considerable distance from the church. The Evangelical 
Episcopal churches have their lecture-rooms also. In 
these little chapels, which will hold generally from 200 
to 400 persons, there are meetings for divine service 
once, and oftener twice, during the week, — the one a 
Bible class or prayer meeting, and the other a regu- 
lar service, but usually in a more familiar style than 
the Sabbath services of the church. In short, the Ame- 
rican clergyman regards the lecture-room as the nursery 
of his church. It is like a tender to a man of war, 
and serves to bring in many a prize into the Church of 
God, that would in all probability have eluded the chace 
of the larger vessel. 

Charleston is the only large city in the United States 
in which the Episcopalians are the most numerous 
religious denomination. This has arisen in great 
measure from the comparative inefficiency, for a long 
period, of the most influential portion of the Presby- 
terian church in that city. The Presbytery of Charleston 
consisted originally of ministers from Scotland, and had no 
connexion with the Presbyterian church in the Middle 
States, After the war of independence, when such a 
connexion was formed for the first time, the congrega- 
tion of the First or principal church still continued to 
look to Scotland for their pastors. But the missionary 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 187 

spirit being then well nigh extinct in Scotland, the men 
that were sent out to them in that capacity were some- 
what like those whom Sir William Berkeley complained 
of as having been sent to Virginia — the most indifferent 
specimens of the clerical " commodity." One of them, 
although a gentleman and a scholar, and, I suspect, a 
Rationalist also, had so little regard even for appear- 
ances, as not to maintain the worship of God under the 
roof that covered him ; while another, the nephew, or 
other near relative, of some minister in Edinburgh who 
had been deputed to send the people apastor and betrayed 
his trust not many years ago, was so notoriously unfit 
for his office, and of such questionable character also, 
that the congregation were obliged to get rid of him, and 
to send him back where he came from. In such circum- 
stances, the Presbyterian church in Charleston neces- 
sarily declined, and many of its best members aban- 
doned it in disgust, from time to time, for the commu- 
nion of the Episcopal church. Things are certainly 
much better under the present pastor, who has hitherto 
kept aloof, however, from the American Presbyterian 
church, and still maintains his connexion with the 
Church of Scotland. But I was sorry to observe that 
the Scots church had no lecture-room and no extra 
services, like the evangelical churches of the city ; that 
to preside at balls, masquerades, and theatrical amuse- 
ments was not regarded as inconsistent even with the 
eldership in its communion ; and that one of its office- 
bearers had been permitted to retain his office even 
after he had married the sister of his deceased wife — a 
practice which, however abhorrent to* the law of God 
and our British feelings, is, I am sorry to say, not 
sufficiently decried even by the clergy in America. 
In short, the connexion of this solitary church in the 
United States with the Church of Scotland has appa- 
rently been permitted to subsist since the war of inde- 
pendence, to demonstrate to the American Presbyterians, 



188 RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

what, I confess, is the real fact, that the standard of 
religion in the Church of Scotland has for a long period 
been much lower than in their own. 

There are no African churches in Charleston : for it 
is a singular fact, that the prejudice against the African 
race is much stronger in America in the States in 
which the negroes are entirely free, than in those in 
which they are still in bondage. The interchange of 
kindly feelings and kindly offices between the two races 
is unquestionably much more frequent and cordial in 
the slave-holding than in the free States. And one of 
the grand objects of the Christian ministry in such a 
state of society ought certainly to be to promote this 
interchange by every possible means, and thereby to 
hasten the ultimate liberation of the negro. It is 
impossible to say how much the benign influence of 
Christianity already has effected in this way in Ame- 
rica — how often it has warmed into kindly feelings 
the heart of the master; how often it has sweetened the 
" bitter draught" of the slave ! 

The coloured portion of the congregations of the 
churches in Charleston uniformly occupy the gallery, 
while the whites are accommodated in the lower part 
of the building. Now I confess I did not see anything 
so peculiarly enormous in this arrangement, as is seen 
by many. If we look at home, we shall find something 
not very dissimilar in our own country, even where 
it is little suspected. Let a poor man, for instance, 
venture to intrude into that portion of our own churches 
which is appropriated either for the noble or the 
wealthy, and he will find himself repelled with precisely 
the same feelings as the American negro is doomed to 
experience who intrudes into the white man's pew. 
And is there anything, I ask, less irrational, less 
unchristian, less inhuman in the aristocracy of birth or 
wealth than in the aristocracy of colour ? So long as 
the enormous wrong of keeping the African race in 



CHURCH ACCOMMODATION. 189 

bondage continues to be perpetrated by whole commu- 
nities in the United States, the lesser evil of the general 
proscription of that race will be perpetrated also. 

Wherever the two races have been brought within 
Christian influence in America, in something like an 
equal degree, it has uniformly been observed that the 
number of genuine and consistent converts has been 
greater among the Africans than among the whites. 
Of the whole number of communicants in the First 
Presbyterian or Scots Church in Charleston, upwards 
of 200 are people of colour, and there are upwards of 
100 in the Second. I did not impute the smaller 
number in the latter case to an inferior degree of 
ministerial efficiency, but simply to their having had to 
pass through a " finer sieve." I did not ascertain the 
number of the coloured members of any of the other 
churches of Charleston. 

From the preceding review, it will be evident to the 
candid reader, that, as far as church accommodation is 
concerned, the Voluntary System has been wonderfully 
efficient in America ; and that therefore, so far from 
there being any danger to be apprehended from leaving 
religion entirely to itself in the world, there is good 
reason to believe, from the extraordinary results of that 
system in the great Transatlantic Republic, that the 
Church or Spouse of Christ is, in reality, " when 
unadorned" with State patronage, " adorned the most," 



CHAPTER V. 

GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM 
IN AMERICA,— MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND 
EFFICIENCY. 

In the able essays of the Rev. Dr. Chalmers on the 
Civic Economy of Large Towns, there is developed, 
with all the eloquence and the power that distinguish 
the productions of that truly eminent man, the princi- 
ple that constitutes the ground-work of his subsequent 
plea for Church endowments. That principle is simply 
as follows : — " In regard to all the articles or commodities 
that are indispensably necessary for the sustenance or 
the comfort of man's physical life, there will always be 
an urgent demand on the part of society, and that de- 
mand will both ensure and regulate the supply. In re- 
gard, however, to all that is indispensably necessary for 
the sustenance or the comfort of man's spiritual life, 
there is no antecedent demand on the part of society, 
and, as men would otherwise perish everlastingly, such 
a demand must be created by insuring a supply in the first 
instance from without. There will always, for example, be 
an urgent demand for wh eaten bread in any neighbour- 
hood, and that demand will ensure an adequate supply of 
bakers to manufacture and to dispose of the article on 
terms mutually advantageous to themselves and to so- 
ciety ; but there is unfortunately no antecedent demand 
for spiritual bread — -for the bread of life — and, in order to 
save men from perishing of spiritual inanition, such a de- 
mand must be created by insuring an adequate supply 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 191 

in the first instance from without ; or, in other words, by 
setting up a Public Bakery, and supplying the famishing 
multitude at the expense of the State." 

Dr. Chalmers was doubtless led to entertain these 
sentiments, from viewing the spiritual destitution of the 
numerous and neglected population of the outskirts of 
the great city of Glasgow, on his first arrival in that city 
from the parish of Kilmany, in Fifeshire. He there saw 
thousands and tens of thousands, who had nevertheless 
grown up under the shadow of the best Church Establish- 
ment in Christendom, perishing for lack of the bread 
and the water of life. There was no demand for spiri- 
tual nourishment on the part of this people on the one 
hand, and " no man gave unto them" on the other ! 

Now, nothing struck me so forcibly during my stay in 
America as the complete contrast presented by the lan- 
guage and sentiments of the American clergy of all deno- 
minations to the views I have just detailed of the Rev. 
Dr. Chalmers, and the whole body of the Established 
clergy of Scotland. The difference, I soon discovered, 
originated in the totally different developments of Ameri- 
can society, under the influence and operation of the 
Voluntary System. 

" Man," observed the Rev. Dr. Robert Breckinridge, 
of Baltimore, who, having been born in the State of 
Kentucky, one of the more recently settled of the 
United States, was well acquainted with the habits 
and feelings of men on the frontiers of civilization — 
u Man is a religious being. There is a sense of weak- 
ness and dependency implanted within him by his 
Creator, which leads him to seek the help and guidance 
of superior powers. And if he is not directed to the 
knowledge and worship of the true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom he hath sent, he will form to himself lords 
many and gods many, the idols of his own heated ima- 
gination, and tax and afflict himself to the utmost, un- 
der the guidance of every debasing superstition, to do 
them acceptable worship." 



192 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

" It must be a strange state of society, indeed,"' ob- 
served the Rev. Dr. Plumer, of Richmond, Virginia, who 
was also born in the Far West, where his parents had re- 
peatedly to fly from the incursions of the Indians, and 
who was, therefore, equally well acquainted with the 
views and feelings of men in a rude state of society, 
— " It must be a strange state of society, indeed, where 
people are able to live comfortably, but are unwilling to 
support the ordinances of religion, when its ministers 
are known to be good men, and willing to live as they 
do themselves." 

" We are not of two opinions on these subjects here," 
observed His Honour Judge Jones, of Philadelphia, 
who did me the honour to invite me to reside with him 
during my stay in that city : " we are all agreed that re- 
ligion requires no support from the State, and can derive 
no benefit from connexion with the civil power." Judge 
Jones is a representative of the old Welch Presbyterian 
emigration of the seventeenth century, and, I am happy 
to add, an eminently Christian man. He has a brother, 
a Presbyterian clergyman, in the city of Philadelphia, 
in whose former congregation at New Brunswick, in the 
State of New Jersey, there was a remarkable revival of 
religion a few years ago. 

But the clergyman who expressed himself the most 
decidedly on this subject, and who, moreover, from his 
age and experience, as well as from his high character, 
his acknowledged talents, and the valuable results of 
his researches into the history of the Church, was doubt- 
less the best qualified to offer an opinion upon the sub- 
ject, was the Rev. Dr. Miller, Professor of Ecclesiasti- 
cal History in the Theological Seminary of the Ameri- 
can Presbyterian Church, at Princeton, New Jersey. 
On requesting Dr. M. to inform me what were the 
general sentiments of the Presbyterian clergy of the 
United States in regard to a civil establishment of re- 
ligion, " Why, Sir," he replied with some degree of 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 193 

surprise at the question, "if the Government of the 
United States were to propose to the Presbyterian clergy 
of this country that they must either become an Esta- 
blished church, or be persecuted by the State, I am 
sure, from what I know of their opinions on the subject, 
they would prefer even persecution to a civil establish- 
ment." 

The benefits resulting from the entire freedom of re- 
ligion, as the absence of all connexion between Church 
and State is significantly designated in America, are so 
universally felt and acknowledged throughout the United 
States, as to constitute a frequent and favourite subject 
of self-gratulation at the great religious anniversaries of 
the land. At the annual meeting of the American 
Foreign Evangelical Society, held in New York in May 
last, and numerously attended, the Rev. Dr. Bethune, 
of Philadelphia, one of the ministers of the Dutch Re- 
formed Church, described in glowing language the be- 
nefits and the blessings the Christians of America de- 
rived from this happy condition of things, as compared 
with the miserable vassalage, and the consequent ineffi- 
ciency of the churches of Europe ; urging it upon the 
meeting, in testimony of their gratitude to Almighty 
God, for their own inestimable privileges, as well as of 
the high value they set upon that " liberty wherewith 
Christ had made them free," to do all that in them lay 
for the moral renovation of those European nations that 
were still lying under the yoke of bondage, and espe- 
cially by sending forth Christian missionaries to regene- 
rate France. 

As a specimen of the universally-received sentiments 
of the American clergy on this important subject, I shall 
subjoin the following brief extract from an eloquent 
" Discourse on the Formation and Development of the 
American Mind, delivered before the Literary Society 
of Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, on the 29th of 
September, 1837 ; by Robert J. Breckinridge, A.M., 



194 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

formerly Attorney and Counsellor at law, and member of 
the legislature of Kentucky, now pastor of the Second 
Presbyterian church, Baltimore, Maryland :" — 

" If man is free in view of earth, who shall bind his 
soul in view of heaven ? If it be good to deprive the 
State of power to bind man's will and acts, except so 
far as clear necessity requires in temporal things, that 
rule applies with far more force and clearness in spiritual 
things. For, if the State desire an engine to oppress 
its people, none has been more near at hand or more 
effectual in every age than a State religion ; or if a 
faction should desire to use the State for evil purposes, 
no principle resides in man, to which so many and so 
effectual appeals have been made, as to a perverted 
religious sentiment. Then if people or governments 
desire security, let every State and all religion be 
always separate. Not that a State shall have no God ; 
for then most surely will God reject that State. But 
as factions in the State are not the constitution — so let 
not sects in religion become the government. And as 
all political opinions are free, so also let all religious 
opinions be : but as all overt acts that endanger the 
public security, peace, or order, are to be punished though 
they be called political, and even proceed from settled 
principle, so also overt religious acts that threaten or 
hurt society are not to be allowed, although men say 
they have exclusive reference to God. Religion of all 
things may be most free, because of all things most of 
its varieties may well consist with public security, 
which is the great end of law. 

" In religion, then, absolute freedom and thorough 
independence of the State is best for itself, and safest 
for the world. The State must punish acts of open 
wrong, and suppress practices which hurt the public 
peace or decency ; not because they are irreligious acts 
or practices, but because they are hurtful, indecent, or 
unjust. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 195 

" Religion is the strongest necessity of the human 
soul ; no people have done without it, none ever will. 
Rather than have no God, men worship things which 
they themselves see to be both corrupt and despicable. 
Sooner than be destitute of some settled faith, they will 
attempt to credit things too gross to be believed, and 
do things too gross to be detailed. They who at any 
time have escaped this mighty influence, have done so 
only after having discovered the vile delusions by 
which they had been misled, and the terrible pollution 
of those who seduced them into sin, professing to guide 
them to God ; and even these have soon returned again 
submissive to the all-pervading power of nature ; which, 
even while they pretended to cast off, they showed 
their proneness to obey by every freak of superstition 
and credulity. All commonwealths may trust as im- 
plicitly that man must be religious, as that he is capable 
to rule himself. His rule may be unwise — his religion 
false and corrupt ; his rule may be subverted, and his 
religion itself destroyed. But as there is no better 
security on which to build a State than to rely on his 
ability to rule himself; so there is no certainty so 
great and yet so safe that religion will exist as to rely 
on man's proneness to it. Here ends the duty of the 
State, and here begins that of the church of God. The 
way is free and wide ; the heart of man, tossed to and 
fro, is panting for that it never finds but in the peace of 
God ; and here the heavenly messenger is sent to 
teach, to guide, to quicken, sanctify, and save. Here is 
our commonwealth, and there our church. Here is 
our agent to consolidate our freedom, to secure our 
rights, to guard our growing greatness, to watch and 
provide the means whereby the humblest citizen may 
be prepared for honest competence, and real though 
obscure usefulness. But yonder is our home, our last 
and blessed abode, not built of men, but God ; and He, 
his word, his Spirit, his messenger, his glorious grace, 



196 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

need little help of human governments, far less their 
guidance, titles, power and riches, and least of all their 
glittering swords or noisome dungeons, to win our Father's 
children to the skies. A stranger's voice they do not 
know ; a stranger's steps they will not follow ; and 
from the voice of man's authority their spirits shrink ; 
and at the sound of the armed tread of power the timid 
bird of peace flies backward into heaven. Oh! that the 
wise would learn, that in their carnal wisdom they are 
but fools with God ; and the strong know that God's 
weakness is mightier than their strength! " 

The Voluntary System effectually secures the Ame- 
rican churches against the intrusion of those numerous 
individuals, who, under every existing establishment, 
enter into the holy ministry from unworthy motives, 
and for mere secular ends. There are no prizes in the 
American churches, for the man of secular ambition, or 
the covetous man. There is no otium cum dignitate 
for the lover of ease. A salary of 2500 dollars per 
annum is, with very few exceptions, the highest salary 
a minister can expect, in any communion ; and even 
this amount, as the Rev. Dr. Tyng, an eminent Epis- 
copal clergyman in the city of Philadelphia, justly 
observed to me, " is but a mere subsistence, and will 
barely enable a city minister to maintain and educate 
his family." On the other hand, the man who feels 
himself possessed of the talent requisite to enable him 
to rise in the world, and to influence his fellow-men, 
has every facility afforded him in America. There is 
no privilege of birth to obstruct his progress, as in Eng- 
land ; there are no monopolies of place and power, to 
wither his energies at the thought, and to blast his 
prospects. Every avenue to preferment lies open before 
him, and the sovereign democracy are ever ready to 
shoulder their idol into the highest offices of the State. 
While the man of mere worldly ambition, therefore, is 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 197 

repelled from the church, in America, he is not less 
strongly attracted in another direction. 

Besides, in all the leading communions in the United 
States, no person is allowed to become a candidate for 
the ministry, who has not given satisfactory evidence 
of personal piety. In the Church of England, as is 
well known, no such test is required ; and, till lately at 
least, matters were very little different even in that of 
Scotland. The multitude of those who had pressed 
into the " priest's office," in both churches, " for a piece 
of bread," or for other ends equally unworthy, was so 
great, that the standard of religion came, at length, to 
be publicly lowered in both establishments, by the voice 
and influence of the majority. 

There is one department of the public service in this 
country, in which, agreeably to the maxim of our great 
naval hero, " England expects every man will do his 
duty." But that department is certainly not the 
church ; otherwise, England forms most unreasonable 
expectations, in supposing that the duty will be 
done, while no adequate means are taken to insure its 
performance, and while the strongest temptations are 
held forth to its neglect. But, under the voluntary 
system, America not only expects that every man will 
do his duty, in the church also, as well as in the navy, 
but actually sees that he does it. The standard of 
ministerial character and duty is unquestionably much 
higher in the United States than it is in this country — 
even in Scotland. Even Captain Marryat bears un- 
conscious testimony to the superior efficiency of the 
voluntary system, in this respect, when he tells us, that 
" the American clergy are, in the mass, equal, if not 
superior, to any in the world ; they have to struggle 
with difficulties almost insurmountable, and worthily do 
they perform their tasks."* " Never, since the days of 

* Diary, part i. Amcr. edit., page 206. 
s 2 



198 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

the apostles,'* observes the Rev. Calvin Colton, quoted 
with approbation by Captain M., " was a country 
blessed with so enlightened, pious, orthodox, faithful, 
willing clergy, as the United States, at this moment." 
In short, the labours of the American clergy are " in 
season, and out of season ;" and I am quite sure, from 
what I uniformly observed, myself, in eleven of the 
States, that they are stimulated to these labours rather 
by their own zeal, and their high sense of duty, than by 
any idea of the supervision of the people.* Every where, 
from Salem to Charleston, along an extent of a thou- 
sand miles of country, I found no religious denomination 
of any pretensions to Evangelical character, resting 
satisfied with the performance of divine service only on 
the sabbath. In every congregation there was a con- 
cert for prayer, at which the minister presided, and 
communicated interesting religious intelligence to his 
people, on the evening of the first Monday of every 
month. There was a weekly Bible-class meeting for 
the more advanced of the younger members of the con- 
gregation. There was a public lecture every Tuesday, 
Wednesday, or Thursday evening. The lecture-room 
was' a never failing appendage of the church, and the 

* The Rev. Calvin Colton, a minister of the Congregational 
Presbyterian Church in New England, who recently renounced the 
communion of that church, and became an Episcopal minister 
principally because they gave Mm too much to do, is a most unexcep- 
tionable witness as to the labours of the American clergy. " There 
is another serious evil," observes Mr. Colton, in his Apologv for 
himself, "in the Presbyterian and Congregational denominations 
which has attained to the consequence of an active and highly influ- 
ential element of these communities. I refer to the excessive 
amount of labour that is demanded of the clergy, which is under- 
mining their health, and sending scores to their graves every year, 
long before they ought to go there." I do confess there is nothing 
like this under the establishment principle. There is no class of 
men who have better lives, to use the phrase of the insurance-office 
than the established clergy. We never hear of their being worked 
to death. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 199 

sabbath-school machinery was uniformly plied by a 
most efficient corps of volunteers. In the Rev. H. 
Boardman's (Presbyterian) church in Twelfth-street, 
Philadelphia, the number of the pupils in the sabbath- 
school averaged from 280 to 300, both male and 
female. In one part of the school, I observed a young 
lady, who had a more advanced class, explaining to her 
pupils that " suffering was in every instance the con- 
sequence of sin." In another, a young gentleman, who 
had a class equally advanced, was illustrating the na- 
ture of justification, and the anti-scriptural character of 
the Popish dogmas on the subject ; showing, at the 
same time, that there was no evidence in Scripture of 
the Apostle Peter's having been in Rome, and that the 
R-omish doctrine, in regard to the precedence and au- 
thority of that Apostle, was altogether unfounded. In 
the course of his remarks, he recommended to his class 
to memorize* (an Americanism for to commit to me- 
mory,) all the passages of Scripture they found to prove 
the particular doctrine or subject of the lesson, as they 
would find the practice exceedingly useful ; adding, 
that he had known people who had memorized the whole 
of the New Testament. Even in the African Presby- 
terian church in Franklin-street, New York, I found a 
most efficient corps of Sabbath-school teachers, both 
male and female, all of African origin. One young 
woman, of unmixed African blood, was explaining to 
her class of little negro girls the verse which they had 
had to commit to memory in the lesson of the day, 
" Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of 

* Cur ego acquirere pauca 
Si possim, invideor; si lingua Catonis et Enni 
Patrium sermonem ditaverit, et nova reruni 
Nomina protulerit? — Horat. Ars Poet. 

In other words, why should the Americans he precluded from 
striking off a few new English words at the Philadelphia Mint, in 
addition to the current coin of the old country ? I dislike the word 
memorize, however ; and the American word indebted?icss, for ohli- 
gation, I di&likc still more. 



200 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacri- 
fice of fools." Perhaps it was rather too metaphorical 
a passage to be selected for the instruction of children. 
I was much pleased, however, with the simplicity and 
the pertinency of the young woman's remarks ; which 
were made with the view of enabling her little charge 
to comprehend and feel the difference between mere 
outward worship, and the worship of the heart and af- 
fections, w T hich alone God requires and will accept. 
At the close of divine service, which I afterwards at- 
tended, in the African church, the regular pastor, a pure 
negro, for whom a brother minister, a mulatto of inter- 
esting and respectable appearance, had been officiating, 
announced a prayer-meeting to be held at his own house 
during the course of the week, and earnestly pressed 
upon his congregation the duty of attending upon such 
means of grace ; telling them — as there had been a 
signal revival of religion in the churches of New York 
during the preceding winter, of which the excitement 
was then just beginning to subside — " that there was a 
more urgent necessity for such attendance after the re- 
vival than during its continuance, as a season of temp- 
tation would most assuredly succeed to the season of 
enjoyment, in which Satan would, in all likelihood, come 
to steal away the good seed that had been sown in their 
hearts." I confess, I could not help thinking on this, 
as well as on other occasions, on which I had opportu- 
nities of witnessing the developments of African in- 
tellect and piety in America, how completely a single 
exhibition of the kind gives the lie, in the estimation 
of any candid person, to the whole impudent philosophy 
of the Facial Angle, that would degrade the African 
to the level of the brutes. It carries conviction at 
once incomparably better than a whole volume of ar- 
gument, and vindicates the title of the African to all 
the rights of men. 

Most of the Evangelical churches of the Episcopal 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 201 

communion in Philadelphia have weekly meetings for 
public prayer, in addition to the weekly evening lecture ; 
and even in Charleston, the attendance on these week- 
day services was greatly better than I anticipated. The 
evening I attended the weekly lecture of the Second 
Presbyterian church, the Rev. James Adger, a young 
clergyman, who had recently returned to Charleston, 
from a visit to Palestine, conducted the service, and in 
the course of it gave a most interesting description of 
the modern city of Jerusalem, and of the state of re- 
ligion, or rather of superstition, in that city. Mr. Adger 
is the son of a wealthy merchant in Charleston, originally 
from the North of Ireland, and has a brother, also a 
Presbyterian minister, a missionary in Smyrna ; and it 
was in the course of a visit to him, and the other Ame- 
rican missionaries in the East, that he had embraced the 
opportunity of visiting Jerusalem, and traversing a por- 
tion of the Holy Land. I had been present at the 
meeting of the Commission of the General Assembly 
of the Church of Scotland, held at Edinburgh, in the 
month of December last, when two of the members of 
the Scotch Deputation to the Jews in the East gave 
some account of their journey. I confess, however, I 
found the narrative of the young American preacher, 
who had gone to Jerusalem of his own accord, and at 
his own charges, and who delivered his personal narra- 
tive without any previous flourish of trumpets, and appa- 
rently unconscious that he was doing any thing extraor- 
dinary, much more interesting, and much better calcu- 
lated to make a deep and salutary impression upon the 
heart.* 



* Mr. Adger had a plan of Jerusalem and its environs on a pretty 
large scale, recently published in America, on which he pointed out 
the relative situations of the localities he described ; proving at the 
same time, that there was no reliance to he placed on the relations 
of the priests and monks of the modern city, in regard to the local- 
ities they exhibit as the scenes of the crucifixion, and of the Savi- 



202 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

In the article of preaching, therefore, the average 
amount of duty among the American clergy of all the 
evangelical communions is to preach at least three 
times a week, besides having various other public duties 
to discharge. Dr. Breckinridge, of Baltimore, informed 
me that, during the eight years he had been in the 
ministry in that city, he had preached regularly four 
times every week. I am aware, indeed, that Dr. B.'s 
name is somewhat unpopular in this country, simply 
because his opinion as to the best mode of labouring 
for the abolition of slavery in America happens to be 
somewhat different from that of the British and 
American Anti-slavery agitators. But when I inform 
the reader that Dr. Breckinridge and his two brothers, 
who are also Presbyterian clergymen, and the sons of 
an extensive slave-holding proprietor in the State of 
Kentucky, emancipated the whole of the slaves that 
were divided among them as their respective portions 
of their father's property at his death, Dr. B.'s opinion 
on such a subject will doubtless appear to the reader 
not altogether unworthy of attention, while his philan- 

our"s sepulchre, &c. For although the great natural features of the 
scenery around the holy city still remain the same as ever, the city 
itself has heen so often turned upside down, as it were, even physi- 
cally, in the course of the numerous sieges to w T hich it has heen sub- 
jected, during the last eighteen hundred years, that there is now no 
possibility of recognizing most of the spots referred to in Holy 
Writ, while there is the strongest reason to believe that the local- 
ities shown by the monks as the scenes of the great events connected 
with our salvation, are not those at which these events w T ere trans- 
acted. Mr. A. then pointed out the evident object of Divine Pro- 
vidence in concealing from men the exact localities in question, viz. 
to teach us that that worship which alone could be acceptable to 
God, was the worship of the heart — a worship which could derive 
no sacredness from any thing external ; contrasting at the same 
time, the privileges which American Christians enjoyed, as compared 
with the spiritual darkness, and the moral debasement of those who 
were actually inhabiting the spot that was once hallowed by the pre- 
sence of the Son of God. There were a good many coloured people 
present on the occasion. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 203 

thropy will be acknowledged to be accompanied with 
the genuine Christian attribute of self-denial, which, it 
must be confessed, is sometimes a wanting even in the 
case of very eminent anti-slavery agitators. 

Indeed, the article of self-denial is one of the very 
strongest points in favour of the American clergy of all 
denominations, who have been trained up under the 
voluntary system, as compared with those in our own 
country who have been reared under the principle of an 
establishment. And in saying so, I do not refer merely 
to the High Churchmen in England or the old Moderate 
party in Scotland, whose whole connexion with the 
venerable establishments to which they respectively 
belong is a matter of thorough and unmingled secu 
larity ; I refer to the professed evangelical clergy of 
both communions. In reading, for example, the life of 
the late Bishop Heber, of Calcutta, I confess I was 
mortified and vexed beyond measure at the good man's 
hesitation on his appointment to that important station, 
on account of the salary and other emoluments, which 
he did not think sufficient, and at his higgling and 
manoeuvring for more ! I confess this single circum- 
stance spoiled the whole book in my estimation, and 
damaged the bishop's character exceedingly. Of the 
manner in which the American clergy act in somewhat 
similar circumstances, I shall give a few examples from 
hundreds of a similar kind that might be adduced. 

The Rev. Dr. M'Crosky, Rector of St. Paul's 
Church, Philadelphia, a very popular preacher and a 
man of high standing in other respects in the American 
Episcopal Church, was elected a few years ago Bishop 
of Michigan, which was then one of the most recently 
formed of the new States, and consequently a mere 
wilderness, with a few paltry settlements thinly scattered 
over its extensive surface. All the salary that was 
promised him in this capacity was 800 dollars per 
annum, and that salary he was to derive as Rector of 



204 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

the Episcopal Church in the town of Detroit, the 
capital of the State. His salary in Philadelphia, a 
highly intellectual and polished city, was 2500 dollars 
per annum. He hesitated, therefore, like Bishop Heber, 
on his appointment to Calcutta, at the idea of leaving 
so eligible a situation for the back woods in Michigan ; 
and while in this state of mind he consulted his friend, 
the Rev. Dr. Bethune, one of the ministers of the 
Dutch Reformed Church in Philadelphia, as to the 
course he should take. Dr. B. told him that, " as a 
plain Presbyterian, he could not be supposed capable 
of prescribing for an Episcopal conscience, but that if 
he himself were in Dr. M'C.'s situation, and held his 
opinions on matters of church-government, he would 
not hesitate for a moment, but would accept the 
appointment at once." Dr. M'C. accordingly took Dr. 
Bethune's advice, and went to Michigan as a bishop on 
a salary of 800 dollars a-year, resigning his salary of 
2500 dollars in Philadelphia. 

The present Bishop Griswold, of the Eastern District, 
was for a long time the only bishop of the American 
Episcopal Church in New England, and derived his 
salary of about £300 sterling per annum, as Rector of 
a particular church. His Episcopal duties, in conse- 
crating churches and administering the rite of confirm- 
ation, had therefore to be discharged gratuitously, and 
in discharging these duties over the extensive district 
entrusted to his superintendence, the apostolic bishop — 
having no coach and four with outriders, any more than 
the apostle Paul — was frequently to be seen trudging 
along on foot, with his travelling bag slung upon his 
staff over his shoulder ! 

When the Rev. Dr. M'Auley, of New York, was 
pastor of one of the Presbyterian Churches in Phila- 
delphia, he was waited upon by a deputation from a 
congregation in New York which had somehow fallen 
into very depressed circumstances ; having got into debt, 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 205 

and many of its former members having left the church. 
The object of the deputation was to invite Dr. M'A. to 
become their pastor, to revive their church and congre- 
gation ; and they offered him, in this capacity, a salary 
of 1500 dollars per annum, while the salary he had in 
Philadelphia, as the pastor of a large and attached con- 
gregation, in one of the principal churches in the city, 
was either 2000 or 2500 dollars per annum. Dr. M'A., 
perceiving that the interests of the church generally 
w T ere in all likelihood to be promoted by his removal, 
did not hesitate for a moment, but accepted the call and 
went to New York ; of course with the concurrence 
of his elders and congregation in Philadelphia. His 
labours in his present situation have been eminently 
blessed, not only in relieving his church and congrega- 
tion from their former embarrassments, but in the con- 
version of many in New York who were once living in 
utter indifference to their spiritual welfare. 

The Rev. Dr. Bethune, a grandson of the celebrated 
Mrs. Isabella Graham, of New York, is now the pastor 
of the Third Dutch Reformed church in Philadelphia. 
He was formerly the pastor of the First church of that 
communion ; but finding that his congregation was ra- 
pidly increasing beyond the means of accommodation, 
he suggested to a few of the leading members of the 
church that a portion of them should separate from the 
rest, and form another church. And as this would oc- 
casion some difficulty in the first instance, and require 
considerable exertion, he offered to become the pastor 
of the new congregation himself, and to vacate his ac- 
tual charge in favour of any other minister whom the 
congregation might choose as his successor. The pro- 
posal was cordially acceded to ; one gentleman offering 
1000 dollars for the object, and another 2000. When 
the sum of 22,000 dollars had been realized in this 
way, it was resolved to commence operations, although 
the church and ground were to cost 60,000 dollars, or 

T 



206 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

12,750/. sterling ; the ground being obtained on mort- 
gage. When the building was commenced, Dr. Bethune 
found that if he should remain in the old church till 
the new one was finished, the greater part of the con- 
gregation would in all likelihood move along with him, 
and the primary object of the arrangement be defeated, 
while his successor would be left without an adequate 
congregation. In these circumstances, Dr. B. proposed 
to vacate his charge, and have a successor appointed 
forthwith, and to go to Europe himself for a few months 
till the new church should be finished, and his succes- 
sor fairly settled. This generous proposal being acceded 
to, a minister for the old church was chosen, and on 
Dr. Bethune's return from Europe, about three years 
before I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, 
he entered upon the duties of his office in the new 
church with only a handful of people. The congrega- 
tion had in the interval, however, steadily increased ; 
the pews were nearly all occupied at the period of my 
visit, and it was expected that in six months more 
the church would be free of debt. It is built in the 
Grecian style with columns of the Doric order in front, 
the basement being of marble, and the walls above 
stuccoed. The basement story contains a lecture-room, 
a Sabbath-school room, a vestry room, and a private 
room for the minister. In leaving his former church, 
Dr. B. had sacrificed about 800 dollars per annum ; 
but such sacrifices are seldom thought of by the Ame- 
rican clergy, when the interests of the Redeemer's king- 
dom, as well as of the particular communion they belong 
to are, to be materially promoted by the change. 

A few years ago, the attention of the Rev. Joel Par- 
ker, minister of the Broadway Tabernacle or Sixth Free 
Presbyterian church, in New York, was strongly directed 
to the destitute condition, as to all the means of grace, 
of the city of New Orleans ; certain members of his con- 
gregation being in the habit of spending the winter 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 207 

months in that city. He was induced at length to pro- 
ceed thither himself to organize a church of the Pres- 
byterian communion ; and being one of the most effec- 
tive preachers of any denomination in America, he very 
soon succeeded in this object, and was the means of 
establishing an important centre of moral influence in 
that dissolute city. After four or five years, however, 
the health of his family broke down under the pestilen- 
tial climate of New Orleans, and he was consequently 
obliged to leave that important station to save them 
from an untimely grave. He is again in his former 
situation as pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle church 
in New York. In such circumstances, however, the im- 
portant station of New Orleans was neither to be left 
destitute nor to be occupied by an inferior man. The 
Rev. Dr. John Breckinridge, a brother of the clergyman 
of the same name in Baltimore, and Professor of Pas- 
toral Theology and Missionary Instruction in the Theo- 
logical college at Princeton, was therefore appointed to 
succeed Mr. Parker, and has been for some time past 
settled at New Orleans. The climate of New Orleans 
is worse than that of any of our West India Islands, 
and is as bad as that of Sierra Leone. The white 
population regularly desert it in a body about the end 
of May, and return with the first frost in September. It 
is necessarily, therefore, an exceedingly expensive place 
for a minister, and Dr. Breckinridge's salary is accord- 
ingly 5,000 dollars, or upwards of 1,000/. a year. He 
leaves New Orleans annually with his congregation, and 
spends the summer months in the north.* 

* Instances of great self-denial for the promotion of the cause of 
God in the world are not peculiar to the clergy in America. They 
are sometimes exhibited also by the laity. Walter Lowrie, Esq., 
a Senator of the United States, who had been elected Clerk of the 
Senate, with a salary of 3000 dollars per annum, and employment 
only for six months in the year, resigned the honours and emolu- 
ments of that situation for the office of Corresponding Secretary to 
the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, a situ- 



208 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

In short, Church Extension in America is managed on 
totally different principles from those on which it is 
sought to be promoted by the whole orders of Friars 
Mendicant in Great Britain. All that is required for 
the accomplishment of the object is self-denial and 
self-devotedness on the part of the clergy. It is painful, 
however, to contrast the state of things, even among the 
Evangelical portion of the clergy of Scotland, with 
these splendid examples of apostolic devotedness in the 
Transatlantic churches. The idea of seriously proposing 
to a minister in Scotland to leave a place with a larger 
for one of a smaller salary, on any account, would either 
be regarded as a personal insult or treated with derision. 
The general conviction of the people of Scotland as to 
the mercenary character of their clergy in this respect 
is embodied in a thousand little anecdotes that are 
always repeated with evident gusto, and in which the 
native humour of the nation is ever and anon seen over- 
lying the sentiment of bitter scorn. " So ye 're gaun 
to lea' us," said an old Scotchwoman to her parish 
minister, who had just got a presentation to a neigh- 
bouring parish with a larger stipend. " Yes, Janet," 
replied the pastor, with a solemn air, " the Lord has 
given me a call up the water." " But what," said Janet, 
rather incredulously, "what if the Lord had gi'en ye a 
call down the water!" — where the stipend was much 
smaller. Of course there w r as no answering such an 
argument as this. 

An eminent Scotch clergyman, now of Greenock, 
(for I shall not touch the case of a single second-rate 
man), was originally settled in a country parish near 
Edinburgh ; but, having received an invitation to 

ation in which he was only to have 2,000 dollars per annum, with 
constant aud unremitting employment all over the country. Mr. 
Lowrie was induced to this step solely by his desire to devote him- 
self entirely to the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ through 
the promotion of missions to the heathen. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 209 

one of the city parishes of Glasgow, he accepted 
it, and was accordingly settled in that city. This 
was not at all wondered at, in any quarter ; for 
the city of Glasgow, being the largest in Scotland, 
was one of the most important stations, for a clergy- 
man, in the kingdom. But when the reverend gentle- 
man subsequently received a presentation to the pas- 
toral charge of a parish in Greenock, where the stipend 
was much larger than the one he had in Glasgow, and 
deserted his large and affectionate congregation in the 
latter city, for a less important station in an inferior town, 
was it possible for the Christian people to assign any other 
reason for his removal, than the mere difference of sa- 
lary ; and was such a reason, so long as the salary in Glas- 
gow afforded an adequate maintenance, sufficient for a 
minister of Christ ? Did it never occur to the clergyman 
I allude to, that great honour would have redounded to 
the cause of religion, and great glory to his Master, if he 
had only had the Christian virtue not to yield to this 
temptation of the devil ? Did he not believe that God 
could easily make up to him the difference of salary, in 
some other way ? Did he suppose that the silent pro- 
test of his Glasgow congregation, against the heartless 
procedure of their pastor, would not be registered in 
heaven ? 

Another distinguished Scotch clergyman, now of Edin- 
burgh, was originally settled as the pastor of a parish 
church in the town of Greenock, the congregation of 
which was one of the largest and most exemplary in Scot- 
land. The members of that congregation were exceed- 
ingly attached to their pastor ; and when he received a 
call to one of the city churches in Glasgow, where the 
stipend was somewhat larger, and declined accepting it, 
they were so much gratified at this uncommon instance 
of self- denial in a Scotch clergyman, that they presented 
him with a handsome gold watch and seals, in testimony 
of their gratitude and respect. Unfortunately, however, 

t 2 



210 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

before the inscription on the watch was finished, Mr. — 
got a call to a church in Edinburgh, most probably on 
the strength of his refusing the one in Glasgow, and 
forthwith accepted it. In short, if every man has his 
price, so had Mr. ; for, I desire to know, what prin- 
ciple of duty could have influenced the refusal in the one 
case, that did not plead as powerfully in the other ? I 

shall be told, perhaps, that Mr. went to Edinburgh 

to agitate for the maintenance of the establishment 
principle. If so, I must acknowledge that the object was 
praiseworthy ; especially when the principle in question 
produces such results as those I am enumerating. 

I might also instance the cases of the Rev. Mr. , 

of L ton, and the Rev. Mr. , of Paisley, two 

very young men, who have been somewhat eminent, 
for some time past, as leaders in the Anti- Voluntary, 
Church Extension, and Non-Intrusion agitations ; but 
who, I am sorry to add, have been hopping about, 
themselves, ever since they were ordained to the Chris- 
tian ministry, from parish to parish, and from church to 
church, trifling with the best feelings and affections of 
the Christian people, and setting them at nought ! But 
I forbear.* 

The Presbyterian church in London was once in 

* There was nothing so frequently testified against, by the councils 
of the primitive church, as the crying evil of translations. It was this 
practice — arising from the want of self-denial in the clergy — that led 
to prelacy in the first instance, and to Popery in the end. It is im- 
possible to suppose that the Great Head of the Church will ever crown 
with his blessing the labours of men, who, to speak the truth, set 
themselves up to auction in the Church, and allow themselves to be 
knocked down to the highest bidder. The Lord will never be satis- 
fied with a sacrifice that costs us nought. It is only when we ofTer 
Him the firstlings of our "flock, without blemish, and without spot, 
that the sacred fire will be seen to descend from heaven, to con- 
sume both the sacrifice and the altar. It is related of Gregory 
Nazianzen, surnamed Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker, that 
he had many ccdU to better livings^ from the little town of Nazianzuni, 
of which he was the pastor or bishop. But he refused them all ; 
and he left this honourable testimony behind him, that, whereas 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 211 

great vigour and efficiency. It has fallen, however, 
during the last half century, into utter insignificance ; 
chiefly, if not solely, from the churches of that com- 
munion in the metropolis being regarded by young 
Scotch clergymen, holding the establishment principle, 
as mere stepping-stones to parishes in Scotland. On 
one of my visits to England, from New South Wales, I 
was present at the settlement of one of these ministers, 

the Rev. Mr. , now of • , in Fifeshire, who 

had been a class-fellow of my own, at the Univer- 
sity of Glasgow. Being asked to address the meet- 
ing on the occasion, I recollect I alluded to the un- 
christian practice I have just adverted to, as the cause 
of the low and fallen condition of the Presbyterian 

church in this city ; but, as Mr. had just told 

the meeting, that his connexion with the church in 
London-wall — the one in which he was settled — was 
" his first affection," and as first affections, I observed, 
were generally lasting, I trusted that the affection he 
had thus avowed would last even until death ; and that 
at some distant day, when the aged men I saw around 
me should have long passed away from amongst the 
children of men, their children and their children's 
children w 7 ould follow to the grave, with tears of real 
affection, the pastor of their fathers' choice, and the 
guide of their own youth ; adding, that the pastoral 
relation was unquestionably as sacred, in the eye of 
Heaven, as either the conjugal or the parental, and that, 
therefore, any minister who deserted his congregation, 
when no case of evident advantage to the interests of 
Christ's kingdom could be clearly established for the 
change, was just as guilty, in the sight of God, as the 

there were only seven Christians in the whole town of Nazianzum, 
when he first settled there as its parish minister, there were only 
seven Pagans left in it when he died. All the rest had been 
converted under his ministry. Such are the men whom " the King 
dclighteth to honour." 



212 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

husband who deserted his wife, or the father his chil- 
dren. I had scarcely reached New South Wales, how- 
ever, on my return to ray own people, when I was 

mortified enough to learn that Mr. , having in 

the mean time got a presentation to a parish in Scot- 
land, had left London by the first Scotch steamboat, 
without even waiting to bid the people of his first 
affection farewell. But God has ways and means of 
his own to punish such heartlessness on the part of 
ministers of the gospel ! 

In short, while one never hears of the covetousness 
of the clergy, under the Voluntary System, in America, 
it is undeniable that the burden of the song of the great 
majority of the clergy who have been trained up in 
Scotland, under the Establishment principle, for a 
whole century past, has been — 

" Any man a sixpence more, 
And whistle o'er the lave o't." 

The Voluntary System in America not only pre- 
sumes that every man will do his duty ; it also pro- 
vides a sufficiency of men for the duty to be done. If 
there is ecclesiastical work of any kind whatever, suf- 
ficient to occupy the whole time and attention of any 
one man, the Voluntary System provides a man for that 
work, and not half a man, as is too often the case under 
the Establishment principle even in Scotland. The 
town of Princeton, in the State of New Jersey, con- 
tains about the same population as the ancient city of 
St. Andrew's in Scotland. There are two colleges in 
both — one for general literature, philosophy, and sci- 
ence, and another for divinity. But while any of the 
Scotch professors ni either of the colleges of St. An- 
drews is at liberty to be also a minister of the city, or 
of any parish in its immediate vicinity, and thereby to 
monopolize the salaries, and neutralize the efficiency of 
both offices, no American professor in either of the 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 213 

colleges at Princeton, is allowed on any pretext to have 
cure of souls at alL* The apostolic maxim is rigidly 
adhered to, " Let him that ministereth, wait upon his 
ministering, and him that teacheth, on teaching." It 
would be idle to compare the principles on which ap- 
pointments are made to professorships in colleges in the 
two countries. In America, the primus inter pares is 
proclaimed by the votes of his brethren : in Scotland, 
political subserviency is often the only qualification 
either possessed or required. When I attended the 
theological course in the university of Glasgow, the 
professor of Hebrew was a minister in the city, who, 
having a parish with a population of 7000 or 8000 
souls, had already double the duty with which any 
single individual ought ever to be charged. As to 
his qualifications for his particular department in the 
university, he was unable to read Hebrew with the 
points when he began to teach the language publicly, and 
had probably never looked at a Hebrew book for twenty 
years before he obtained his professorship ; the men by 
whom he was appointed, having notoriously betrayed 
their trust to the church and the public. 

Besides the thirty-four Presbyterian ministers, having 
cure of souls, in the city of Philadelphia, there are other 
five, who have no cure of souls, and whose time and 
attention are exclusively devoted to objects of general 
interest and importance to their communion. One of 
them is the Corresponding Secretary to the Board of 
Domestic Missions ; other two are the secretaries and 
general agents of two Boards of Education ; and two 
more are editors of religious periodicals, in the form of 
newspapers, of which the circulation is extensive, and 
the influence highly beneficial. Even in Charleston, I 
found a Presbyterian minister relieved of the cure of 
souls, and employed most beneficially for the members 

* In the West, as at Cincinnati, and in Illinois, where men are 
not to be had, the case is necessarily different.^ 



214 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

of his communion in the States of South Carolina and 
Georgia, in editing a religious periodical, of which, I 
was told, the circulation was upwards of five thousand. 
There are no such functionaries in Scotland — not surely 
because they are less wanted, but simply because the 
Voluntary System is incomparably more efficient than 
a National Establishment in searching out and in em- 
ploying the best means for the promotion of morality 
and religion in any land. 

The Americans, however, are not altogether without 
some experience of the working of the Establishment 
principle in their own country even at present. There 
is one department of the public service in the United 
States, in which the principle of a National Establish- 
ment — State salaries and State appointments — is still in 
force ; and it seems somewhat remarkable that the cir- 
cumstance should have been entirely overlooked by 
Captain Marryat, especially when that department was 
his own. The President of the United States has still 
the appointment of all chaplains in the American navy 
and navy-yards. During the Presidency of Mr. Munroe, 
and towards the close of his administration, one of these 
offices — the chaplaincy of the navy-yard at Washington 
— happening to fall vacant, Mr. M. recollected that the 
son of an old revolutionary soldier, with whom he had 
been intimate in his youth, was residing about fifteen 
miles off, in the State of Maryland, in but indifferent 
circumstances, and forthwith appointed him to the chap- 
laincy, which was worth about 1200 dollars per annum ; 
for as the President of the United States is not restricted 
on these occasions, like the Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
land, either to a particular church or a particular curri- 
culum, he deemed it quite unnecessary to make any 
inquiry beforehand about qualifications. The chaplain 
elect was a Maryland farmer ; and though a respectable 
person in his way, he had never studied for the ministry, 
and had no wish to do so. On receiving his appoint- 



ment, therefore, he waited on the President, and repre- 
senting the incongruity of the office with his own pre- 
vious habits and education, respectfully tendered his 
resignation. This, however, the President would not 
accept ; telling him he would only have to read the 
burial service over the dead, * and do such other cleri- 
cal duty in the way of reading out of a book, as any 
man could do with the utmost facility, without profes- 
sional study of any kind. The farmer, however, al- 
though an Episcopalian, and accustomed to read pray- 
ers, could not be persuaded to turn a regular parson ; 
but as he had a nephew, a clerk in one of the public 
offices, who had no reluctance to qualify himself for 
the chaplaincy, an exchange of appointments was ne- 
gociated, with the approbation of all concerned, and 
both were thereby retained in the family. There are 
only about twelve chaplaincies in the American navy 
altogether ,• and a clergyman who had had abundant 
opportunity of observing how these appointments were 
filled up, informed me, he did not believe that more 
than five of the chaplains had either been trained to 
the ministry in any way, or were at all qualified for it 
in any respect. At all events, the practical working of 
this National Establishment in petto has not served in 
any measure to conciliate the Americans to the idea of 
a more intimate connexion of Church and State. 

There is nothing, however, in which the American 
Voluntary System appears more accordant with the whole 
character of our holy religion, or more remarkably dis- 
tinguished from the system in operation among ourselves, 
than in the manifestations of its Christian benevolence to- 
wards those who have gone forth from their father-land 
by a voluntary expatriation. I allude particularly to 
the Republic of Texas. As the American churches 

* The American Episcopal service is generally read over the 
dead in the U. S. navy, when there is no clergyman officiating of a 
different communion* 



216 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

have no connexion with their own civil government, it is 
not to be supposed that they will concern themselves 
with the civil institutions of others. Their sole object 
is to disseminate Christian knowledge through the 
preaching of the gospel, and thereby to ply that moral 
lever which alone can move the world. The simple 
fact, therefore, with which they were concerned in 
regard to Texas, was, that there was there congregated 
a rapidly increasing multitude of Americans and Eu- 
ropeans, who had succeeded in establishing their na- 
tional independence, and in organising a regular go- 
vernment. On this fact, then, the American churches 
acted forthwith, in providing for the moral and spiritual 
destitution of Texas. At what time, or in what manner, 
the other three leading communions of the United 
States took up the case, it is not necessary to inquire. 
I mention the Presbyterian, merely because it will en- 
able the reader to look at both sides of the picture. As 
soon, therefore, as the case of Texas was brought be- 
fore the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church 
in America, the Assembly selected one of their ablest 
and best men, Dr. John Breckinridge, now of New Or- 
leans, and sent him to Texas to visit the principal set- 
tlements of the country, to inquire into the circum- 
stances, and view r s, and feelings of the people, and to 
ascertain what could be done for the setting up of the 
ordinances of religion among them. For although many 
of the Texans had, like David's company in the cave of 
Adullam, been in debt and in difficulties in their own 
country, bankrupt in character, it might be, as well as in 
fortune, it was sufficient, in the estimation of the Assem- 
bly, that there should be a man of God among them, 
to shed a hallowing influence around, and to transform 
the locality into holy ground.* Dr. Breckinridge was 



* Two of my fellow-travellers from the north-eastern limits of 
the State of North Carolina to Wilmington and Charleston were 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 217 

cordially received in Texas, and shortly after he had 
submitted his Report on his return, first one, and then 
another, and then another and another, regularly or- 
dained minister of the Presbyterian church was sent 
forth to Texas, with all his expenses paid and a salary 
secured him, in the first instance, from the Board of Fo- 
reign Missions ; insomuch that there is already a Pres- 
bytery of Texas regularly organized, and in full com- 
munion with the American Presbyterian Church. 

That slavery will, at no distant period, be entirely 
abolished both in America and in Texas, (if it is really the 
law of the land in the latter country,) I firmly believe. 
But that it will only be abolished through the influence 
of Protestant Christianity, I believe also. On this 
question, however, I do not intend to enter at present. I 
merely desire to direct the reader's attention to the fact, 
that while, agreeably to the Mexican constitution, which 
certain patriots naturally think unexceptionable, the re- 
ligion of the Holy Roman Apostolic Church is not only 
the established religion, but the only religion tolerated 
in Mexico ; there is already an independent Protestant 
State, and a whole series of Protestant churches — found- 
ed on the Voluntary System, and exhibiting something 
like the zeal and energy of primitive times — within the 

respectable Carolinian farmers, who, I learned, were in hot pursuit of a 
neighbour of their own who owed them some money, and had just paid 
them off with a G.T.T., as the Americans say, or, in plain English, had 
Gone to Texas ; carrying along with him his family and his slaves. 
He had preceded them, we ascertained, by the railroad and the 
steamboat, to Charleston, and was supposed to have gone by another 
steamboat from thence to Savannah, in Georgia, with the view of 
proceeding with all possible expedition to New Orleans ; and the 
only chance they had of overtaking him was the possibility of his 
staying a day or two by the way, which was not probable, or his 
not finding a vessel for Texas on his arrival at New Orleans, which 
wa3 very possible. I did not hear, however, whether they had suc- 
ceeded in apprehending him or not. The population of Texas now 
consists of about 100,000 persons, among w : hom, I was given to un- 
derstand, there are already many reputable people. 

U 



218 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 






recent limits of that republic. And as it has now been 
fully demonstrated, that Protestant Christianity is alone 
sufficient to sustain republican institutions in America, I 
have no hesitation in expressing my belief, that unless 
judicious measures are speedily taken, in connexion with 
Protestant Christianity, to consolidate the Mexican re- 
public, and to give consistency and moral power to its 
weak and discordant elements, another and another in- 
dependent State, like that of Texas, will be formed within 
its frontier, till the flags of American adventurers float 
over the whole extent of the empire of Montezuma.* 

To return from this digression. When, I ask, has the 
Church of Scotland, like the American Presbyterian 

* So very humble is voting Master Jonathan's estimate of the 
intellect and the prowess of the Mexicans, as compared with his 
own, that I was told by an American clergyman of high standing, 
who had the best opportunities of ascertaining the sentiments and 
views of his countrymen, that if such a crisis should arrive as that 
any American general, in whom the youth of the country had con- 
fidence, were to offer to lead them to Mexico, to establish an Anglo- 
Saxon government in the capital of that republic, he would have an 
army of 50,000 Americans, ready to march with him on their own 
charges in six months. I have no doubt that such are the feelings of 
the American youth. It would not be prudent, however, for their 
own sakes — to say nothing of Christianity — to allow such feelings 
to have play. Without any movement of this kind, I am persuaded 
that before the close of this century, the Anglo-Saxon race will be 
in possession of every foot of land on the North American continent. 
The Mexican, and other Spanish States, are not increasing in popula- 
tion, in consequence of their unsettled condition and perpetual war- 
fare. The Americans are already seventeen millions and a half, 
and are doubling themselves every twenty- four years. As a proof 
that the Americans are not singular in the estimate they have formed 
of their own prowess, as compared with that of the Mexicans, I may 
mention the following fact, which is well authenticated : — Colonel 
Domingo Ugartecchia, of the Mexican army, having, in the year 1 832, 
been attacked by a Texan force, consisting exclusively of American 
emigrants, and forced to capitulate, afterwards remarked, that 
" If he had only a thousand such men, disciplined, as had attacked 
him, he would not be afraid to march in a hostile manner even 
gainst Mexico itself." 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 219 

church, in the case of Texas, ever sent out one of her 
chief men to ascertain the circumstances of the thou- 
sands and the tens of thousands of the Christian emi- 
grants of her own communion in any colony of the Bri- 
tish empire ? The British colonies of Australia had ac- 
tually been established for fifty years before the church 
of Scotland ever gave the subject of the spiritual welfare 
of their Presbyterian inhabitants, one solitary thought. 
Fast asleep on the downy pillow of her national esta- 
blishment, she left her Colonial children to perish for 
lack of that spiritual knowledge which alone could make 
them wise unto salvation ; and it was only after I ha& 
been compelled, through her apathy and indifference, 
to make the fourth dreary voyage to England, from the 
ends of the earth, that she was roused at length to 
something like a sense of her interest and her duty. 
But what did she do even then, when fairly awake ? 
Did she contribute, of her silver and her gold, like the 
American Presbyterians in the case of Texas, that the 
long-neglected colonists might at length drink of the 
milk of her kindness ? No ! not one farthing ! After 
privately expressing her opinion, through her chosen 
leaders, that the Whigs were infidels in the main, and 
had no wish to support the church, she told the govern- 
ment that if it supplied her with the money she would 
send the men. And when the Whig government did 
supply the money, instead of sending forth the choicest 
of her men to plant the standard of Presbyterian Chris- 
tianity in an infant empire, the very first she sent was a 
superannuated schoolmaster, a man who had been hunt- 
ing unsuccessfully for a settlement in Scotland for more 
than twenty years ; and who, when told in the place of 
his actual settlement beyond seas, that the people 
would not have him for their pastor, replied that he had 
a salary for life, and cared nothing for the people ! Nay, 
even at this moment, although there are not fewer than 
ten or twelve districts in the colony of New South 
Wales, in which the Presbyterian inhabitants are com- 



220 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

paratively numerous, and in absolute spiritual destitu- 
tion, the church of Scotland, with all her pretensions to 
zeal and liberality, cannot send them a single man, be- 
cause, forsooth, Lord John Russell has informed her that, 
as the colonial expenditure has already exceeded the 
revenue, he can no longer advance the sum requisite 
for passage and outfit for additional ministers! 

How different are the feelings and the practice of 
the American Presbyterians, under their Voluntary 
System ! Only a few weeks ago, when I requested 
them, at the meeting of their Board of Missions in 
New York, and their General Assembly in Philadelphia, 
to send us a few of their ministers to help us in the 
Southern hemisphere, they agreed at once to send three 
regularly ordained ministers to New South Wales, and 
two to New Zealand. For these ministers they engage 
not only to provide passage and outfit, but salary also. 
They ask no assistance from Mr. Van Buren and his 
Sub- Treasury officials. They merely present some such 
appeal as the following to the Christian people of their 
communion : " Yonder is the vast howling wilderness 
far over the sea ; and here are the men who are willing 
to go forth, with the help of the Lord, to transform that 
wilderness into a fruitful field. Is it your pleasure that 
they should go?" And the Christian people, "honour- 
ing the Lord with their substance, and with the first- 
fruit of all their increase" upon the spot, give their 
willing assent. 

I was present at a meeting of the General Assembly's 
Committee on Colonial Churches, held in Edinburgh, in 
the spring of the year 1837, when the subject of the 
Presbyterians of Canada was brought under considera- 
tion. I may premise that there are fifty-five Presby- 
terian ministers in the Synod of Canada, and that these 
ministers recently informed their brethren of the Ame- 
rican Assembly, that they could easily settle not fewer 
than a hundred more, if they had them, or in other 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 221 

words, that there were not fewer than a hundred vacancies 
within their territory. Now, I have no hesitation in 
affirming, that this is an amount of spiritual destitution— 
which has grown up too under the eyes of the Church of 
Scotland, and for which that church alone is respon- 
sible to God — to which there is no parallel, for the 
same extent of country and the same population, in 
the United States. Such then being the case of the 
Presbyterian church in Canada, what did the General As- 
sembly's Committee do to provide a remedy? Did they 
resolve to raise funds, and to send out men to Canada? 
No ; they did nothing of the kind. The chairman merely 
submitted to the meeting the draft of a mendicant me- 
morial or begging petition, which he had drawn up in 
the name of the Committee, and which the Committee 
approved, to be forwarded to Lord Glenelg ; in which 
his lordship was informed that there were a great many 
Presbyterians in Canada, for whom the Church of Scot- 
land's bowels were at length yearning sadly ; that there 
were many "nondescript vagrant teachers of religion" 
{sic /) in the province, — by whom were meant the Me- 
thodists, Independents, and Baptists, who had all along 
been bearing the burden and heat of the day in Canada, 
and doing the very work which these calumniators had 
been themselves neglecting, — but that if his lordship 
would only give them money enough, they would send 
out men like themselves, right men, to Canada, men 
" bearing their mark, and their name, and the number of 
their name, upon their foreheads ! " Of course his lord- 
ship must have had a heart of stone to resist so touch- 
ing an appeal as this ! 

To contrast this procedure towards the colonies with 
the results of the Voluntary System the — Americans 
have a sort of colony on the west coast of Africa, 
called Liberia. I do not inquire at present into the cir- 
cumstances under which that colony was formed, nor into 
the views of its founders. I merely mention the fact, 

u2 



2J.2 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

with which alone the American churches had to do, viz. 
that there were five thousand native Americans, of the 
coloured race, speaking the English language, and 
governing themselves, as a free and independent repub- 
lic, by English laws, in the territory of Liberia in west- 
ern Africa. On this fact, the four leading American 
communions — the Methodists, the Baptists, the Pres- 
byterians, and the Episcopalians — acted forthwith and 
with one accord ; insomuch that there are already not 
fewer than forty American Missionaries of all these 
denominations in the little colony of Liberia. These 
Missionaries are intended not only to organize churches 
of their respective communions among the colonists, 
but to avail themselves of the influence which the 
colonial authorities are ever ready to afford them, in 
pushing into the interior, and in disseminating far and 
wide among the tribes of Africa the knowledge and the 
blessings of our holy religion. Such, then, is the ample 
provision which the Voluntary System of America has 
already made for the only colony of that splendid re- 
public — forty Missionaries for a colonial population of 
5000 souls ! Oh, if the Church of Scotland had only 
evinced one tenth part of the interest, in promoting 
the spiritual welfare of her members in the colonies, 
that has thus been evinced by her Voluntary daughter, 
the American Presbyterian Church, in common with the 
other communions above mentioned, in the cases of 
Texas and Liberia, how many a dark and desolate re- 
gion in these colonies, whose silent protest against the 
heartless indifference and neglect of the Scottish Church 
is recorded in heaven, might now have blossomed as 
the rose ! 

I mention the Church of Scotland and the American 
Presbyterian Church particularly, in reference to this 
running comparison of Established and Voluntary 
churches; 1st, Because the Methodists and Baptists 
do not exist as Established Churches in this country, 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 223 

and therefore afford no proper data for a comparison of 
the two systems ; while the millstone that has hitherto 
been hanging around the neck of American Episco- 
pacy, and the splendid endowment, tantamount to an 
establishment, of that church in the State of New York, 
equally preclude any general comparison of the effici- 
ency of the two systems in the case of the Episcopal 
communion. 2ndly, Because the whole system of dis- 
cipline, doctrine, and worship, as well as the general 
standard of education among the clergy, in the two 
Presbyterian churches, on the opposite sides of the 
Atlantic, are precisely the same. I shall, therefore, 
continue to run a parallel between these two churches. 
I observe, then, that the efforts of the Church of 
Scotland for the extension of the kingdom of Christ 
and the promotion of morality and religion, both at 
home and abroad, during the last fifty years, sink into 
utter insignificance when compared with those of the 
American Presbyterian church. In the matter of 
Church Extension, for example, the Church of Scotland 
lay fast asleep on the pillow of her establishment during 
nine-tenths of that whole period ; allowing her parishes 
to grow up in many instances into a population of 5000, 
10,000, 20,000, nay even 30,000 souls, and "doing 
nothing in it," to use the correct language of Governor 
Fletcher. And when she did arouse herself into action 
in the matter, was the movement either voluntary or 
spontaneous ? By no means ; it was quite in character, 
■ — altogether compulsory. It was only when she heard the 
Voluntary drum beating to arms under the direction of 
the famous Dr. Ritchie, " the master of the band," — it 
was only when the cannons of the voluntary church- 
men had made a breach in the wall and were actually 
pointed at the citadel, — it was only then that the Church 
of Scotland found it necessary to arm pro arts etfocis,&r\d. 
sent forth her Hannibal, the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, to cross 
the Alps of the Establishment Principle, and to deploy 



224 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

into the enemy's territory, in the masterly manoeuvre 
of Church Extension. God forbid that I should decry 
that effort in any way ; but we read in Scripture his- 
tory, that while " Amaziah did that which was right in 
the sight of the Lord" he did it " not with a perfect 
heart, like his father David." In short, I suppose he 
did it, not so much to extend the Kingdom of Christ 
as to put down the Voluntaries! 

But what are we to think of the subsequent move- 
ment of the Church of Scotland, — the begging petition 
for endowments for the Extension churches, especially 
in the actual circumstances of the country ? Why, this 
was indeed " beginning in the spirit, and ending in the 
flesh ! " It was truly a miserable manoeuvre after the 
other. 

Let us now cross over once more to America. 

In the year 1789, when the Synod of New York and 
Philadelphia was dissolved, and the General Assembly 
of the American Presbyterian Church constituted, there 
were only 177 ministers of that body in the United 
States, and 419 congregations. At the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the General Assembly, in the year 1839, 
the numbers had increased respectively to 2225 min- 
isters and 2807 churches ; that is, more than eleven 
times the number of ministers at the commencement of 
that period ! And having travelled myself, considerably 
upwards of 2000 miles in the States, and seen hun- 
dreds of the American churches, I can testify that in 
all parts of the country I visited, from Salem to Charleston, 
these churches were almost universally of a creditable 
appearance, superior in their style of architecture to 
that of the generality of private dwellings in the neigh- 
bourhood, and for the most part having neat spires and 
bells— in short, quite unlike the barns that used to be dig- 
nified with the name of " Chapels of Ease" in Scotland. 

It is singular, also, that the only schism that had 
taken place in the American Presbyterian Church dur- 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 225 

ing this period, previous to its recent division into 
two General Assemblies, arose, not from any differ- 
ence in doctrine, discipline, or worship, but from alleged 
backwardness on the part of the Church in the great 
cause of Church Extension. Shortly after the com- 
mencement of the present century, there was a remark- 
able revival of religion in the Presbyterian Church in 
the State of Kentucky, which was then the western 
frontier of the Union ; and as many congregations 
that were then rapidly formed along that frontier, 
earnestly petitioned for the establishment of the ordi- 
nances of religion among them, an aged and experienced 
minister, belonging to the Presbytery of Cumberland in 
Kentucky, proposed, that in such an emergency, when 
it was otherwise impossible to provide any thing like 
the number of ministers required, a few men of acknow- 
ledged piety and approved gifts should be licensed 
to preach the gospel, although they had not received 
a regular education. The Presbytery accordingly 
licensed a few such men, and sent them forth to preach 
the gospel in the Far West. The Synod of Kentucky, 
however, refused to receive these licenciates, and re- 
quired the Presbytery to disown them. This the latter 
refused to do ; and the breach which was thus created 
being gradually widened through the uncompromising 
spirit of the Synod, the Presbytery of Cumberland at 
length withdrew from that body, and established a se- 
parate communion ; protesting at the same time that 
in doing what the urgency of the case appeared to them 
to render indispensably necessary, and what their con- 
sciences still approved, they had no desire to lower the 
standard of education in the Presbyterian Church, or to 
countenance the intrusion of an illiterate ministry. 

The Synod of the Cumberland Presbyterians now com- 
prises 450 ministers and 500 churches. I have been 
told, indeed, that they have since declined into Armi- 
nianism. They were not Arminians, however, at the 



226 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

period of their secession ; and I confess I am always 
inclined to receive with much caution the charge of 
heresy, when preferred either against individuals or pub- 
lic bodies who have been treated with injustice. As a 
proof that the Cumberland Presbyterians are not hostile 
to education, they have established a college for the 
education of their clergy. 

Regarding the point of having an educated clergy to 
dispense the ordinances of religion in any Christian 
church as a matter of the utmost importance, I am, 
nevertheless, strongly disposed to believe that the 
ground taken on that subject by the Cumberland Pres- 
byterians was the right one. In a country like the 
western frontier of the American Union, where towns 
and villages are rising up in the wilderness, as rapidly 
as Jonah's gourd, are these communities to remain ut- 
terly destitute of the ordinances of religion till we can 
procure for them a regularly educated clergy? — till we 
can get the requisite number of young men passed 
through a course of seven or eight years of academical 
preparation ? Was this the principle on which the 
apostles acted when they " ordained elders in every 
city?" Or is it the principle that applies to the ur- 
gency of the case — the necessity of the times ? Why, 
while the American Presbyterian Church has been 
educating clergy for such localities, the ground has 
been already preoccupied, in hundreds of instances, by 
the Methodists and Baptists ; and " the base things of 
this world, and things that are despised, yea, and things 
that are not," have thus, in many an instance, been 
far more highly honoured of God than " the things 
that are." So far from wishing to lower the standard 
of education in the Presbyterian Church, either at home 
or abroad, I would aim rather at its elevation ; for, as 
a learned professor of the university of Edinburgh ob- 
served of the old parish schools of Scotland, which it 
has been so long the fashion to praise indiscriminately, 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 227 

that they were " slaughter-houses of intellect," I think 
he might have added some of the divinity colleges also ; 
for, strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless the fact, 
that in some at least of these nurseries for the Church 
of Scotland, the prime apostolic qualification of " apt- 
ness to teach," was seldom if ever thought of. At the 
same time, I am decidedly of opinion — more especially 
from the wonderful success that has attended the hum- 
ble but zealous efforts of the Methodists and Baptists 
in the United States of America, quite uneducated as a 
large proportion of their ministers and preachers have 
hitherto been — that in such a state of society, the Pres- 
byterian Church should by all means have a species 
of light infantry to scour the forests, in advance of their 
main body of heavy armed and regular clergy. The 
Presbyterians are the only religious denomination who 
do not act on this principle ; and I humbly conceive 
that in so doing, they are decidedly in the wrong. An 
Episcopal minister who died suddenly a few years ago 
in the town of Sydney in New South Wales, was much 
respected as a Christian pastor while he lived, and much 
regretted when he died, although he was never able to 
read a syllable of Latin, nor had ever been within the 
walls of a college in his life. The Bishop of London 
who, notwithstanding his inferior acquirements, had 
ordained him for foreign parts, had more common sense 
than certain of the Presbyterian clergy.* 

* The American Presbyterian Church has uniformly taken high 
ground on the subject of the education of the clergy, and her cham- 
pions have accordingly been always disposed to take no small credit 
to themselves for the fact. "In 17^3," observes the Rev. Dr. 
Hodge, "at the request of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the Ques- 
tion was considered, whether a person without a liberal education 
may be taken on trials, or licensed to preach the gospel ? which was 
answered in the negative. And in 1785, the same question came 
up in a different form, viz., whether, in the present state of the 
church in America, and the scarcity of ministers to fill our vacan- 



228 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

At all events, if the stand which the American 
Presbyterian Church made for an educated clergy, in 
the case of the Cumberland Presbyterians, was really a 
" failing," it must be acknowledged that it was one of 
those that " lean to virtue's side." The efforts which 
that church has made for the education of the clergy 
during the last half century have been truly astonishing, 
and may well cause the Church of Scotland to blush 
for shame at the contrast they present with her own. 
Not to speak at present of the colleges for general 
education, in which candidates for the ministry of any 
denomination obtain a somewhat similar preliminary 

cics, the Synod or Presbyteries ought to relax in any degree in the 
literary qualifications required of intrants into the ministry? and it 
was carried in the negative by a great majority. These decisions, 
considering the circumstances of the case, certainly reflect great 
credit upon the Synod." 

Now before 1 can give an unqualified approbation even of these 
sentiments, I must be informed whether it would have been better 
for the interests of the church of Christ generally, for the conver- 
sion of sinuers, and the salvation of mankind, if the Methodists and 
Baptists of the United States — instead of going forth at once into the 
great American wilderness, to the number of from six to seven 
thousand preachers of the gospel of Christ, leaving an educated 
clergy to follow in their train with the heavy baggage of literature 
and science — had " staid at Jericho, till their literary beards were 
grown," and till Dr. Hodge and his brethren, or any other body of 
educated clergy on earth, had thought fit to license them to preach 
the gospel ? In that case they would never have gone forth at all ; 
for the thing was impracticable. This, then, is a dilemma ; and I should 
like to see how my able and excellent friend, Dr. H., will get his 
church out of it, in his third volume, w T hich is not yet published. 
Yes! it is possible "to pay too dear even for the whistle" of an 
educated clergy ; and the wonderful success of the Methodists and 
Baptists in the United States, not to speak of the Cumberland Pres- 
byterians at all, proclaims the fact. To see the sword of the Spirit 
uniformly wielded by a master in Israel, were indeed a delightful 
spectacle in the church of Christ ; but it ought never to be for- 
gotten, especially in a rude state of society, that that sword is so 
divinely tempered that it will reach the inmost soul of the sinner 
even when wielded by the most unskilful hand. 



ministerial character and efficiency. 229 

education to that which is given in the Language and 
Philosophy classes of the Scotch Universities, the 
American Educational System requires that each of the 
leading denominations should have separate Theologi- 
cal Seminaries or divinity colleges of its own. The 
students in these seminaries are required, previous to 
their admission, to produce either a diploma of Master 
of Arts, or a certificate of attendance during a regular 
academical course of four years in one or other of the 
colleges for general education ; and during the three 
years of their attendance in the Seminary or divinity 
college, they are not at liberty, as students of divinity 
are in Scotland, to occupy themselves for six or seven 
hours a day in private teaching or in teaching schools, 
but are obliged to devote the whole of their time to 
preparation for the ministry. To enable them to 
comply with these conditions, the whole of their 
theological education is afforded them gratuitously, at 
the expense of the church, and their rooms in the 
college are allowed them free of rent. Nay, if they 
are unable to meet the small expense necessary for 
board at the college table, for fuel, for servants, for 
clothes, for books, &c, the Board of Education 
advances them the sum requisite for these purposes, on 
condition of their signing an obligation to return it if 
they should not become ministers of the gospel, or as 
soon as they are able, if they should ; that others may 
thereafter experience the same benefit also. I subjoin 
a few particulars of the statistics of some of the Divinity 
Colleges of the American Presbyterian Church. 

I. The Theological Seminary or Divinity College of 
Princeton, New Jersey, founded by the General 
Assembly in the year 1811, has an extensive building 
of freestone, capable of accommodating from 150 to 
200 students ; with class-rooms, library, a detached 
chapel, and houses for the professors. The present 
professors are, 

x 



230 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

Rev. Archibald Alexander, D.D., Professor of Di- 
dactic and Polemic Theology. 

Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical 
History and Church Government. 

Rev. Charles Hodge, D.D., Professor of Oriental 
and Biblical Literature. 

Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, Associate Professor 
of Oriental and Biblical Literature. 

With the exception of the last, whose salary, I 
believe, is only 1500 dollars, these professors have each 
a free house and a salary of 2000 dollars per annum. 
These salaries are derived partly from an endowment, 
created by voluntary contribution, in addition to the 
large amount expended on the buildings, and partly 
from the funds of the church. The number of students 
is at present considerably upwards of a hundred ; of 
whom twenty-seven are Bursars, enjoying small incomes 
arising from scholarships in the Institution founded by 
wealthy and benevolent individuals. The General 
Assembly having fixed the minimum for the endow- 
ment of a scholarship at 2500 dollars, or some- 
what above £500, the annual income of each student 
on these foundations will be about £30 ; the usual 
interest of money in America being six per cent. I 
subjoin the names of a few of these scholarships from 
the college list. 

1. The Le Roy Scholarship. 

2. The Banyer Scholarship, both founded by Mrs. 
Martha Le Roy, of New York. 

21. The Boudinot Scholarship, founded by the Hon. 
Elias Boudinot, LL.D., of Burlington, New Jersey. 
Both of these families were of Huguenot origin. 

10. The Van Brugh Livingston Scholarship, founded 
by Mrs. Susan U. Neimcewicz, of Elizabeth Town, 
New Jersey. The reader will bear in mind the Polish 
emigrants of the seventeenth century under Count 
Sobieski : they have not degenerated in America, 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 231 

22. The Ed* Scholarship, founded by Mr. Robert 
Hall and his sister, Marion Hall, of Newbury, Orange 
County, New York. 

5. The Charleston Female Scholarship, founded by 
the Female Association of Charleston, South Carolina, 
for assisting in the education of pious youth for the gos- 
pel ministry. 

6. The Augusta Female Scholarship, founded by the 
ladies of Augusta, Georgia. 

2. The Lennox Scholarship, founded by Robert Len- 
nox, Esq., of New York ; whose son, Robert Lennox, 
Esq., gave me, of his own accord, 50/. to assist in found- 
ing a Divinity College in New South Wales. 

The following is the Course of Study in the Se- 
minary : — 

First year — Hebrew Language ; Exegetical Study of 
the Scriptures ; Sacred Rhetoric ; Biblical Criticism ; 
Biblical Antiquities ; Introduction to the Study of the 
Scriptures ; Mental and Moral Science ; The Evidences 
of Natural and Revealed Religion ; Sacred Chronology; 
Biblical History. 

Second year — Exegetical Study of the Hebrew and 
Greek Scriptures continued ; Didactic Theology ; Ec- 
clesiastical History ; Missionary Instruction. 

Third year — Exegetical Study of the Scriptures con- 
tinued ; Didactic Theology continued ; Polemic Theo- 
logy ; Church Government ; Pastoral Theology ; Com- 
position and Delivery of Sermons. 

Members of the first class are required to exhibit ori- 
ginal compositions once in two weeks; those of the se- 
cond class once in three weeks ; and those of the third 
class once in four weeks. 

I attended one of Dr. Miller's lectures in the Church 
History class. It was on the English translations of 
the Scriptures ; of which, after giving a brief but lumin- 

* See Joshua xxii. 34. 



232 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

ous sketch of the history and characteristics, Dr. M. 
took up the question whether there ought to be a new 
version of the Holy Scriptures for Protestant Christians 
speaking the English language — a question which, I 
afterwards understood, had been the subject of contro- 
versy in the United States ; the Baptists having recently 
introduced a new version, in which, of course, the prin- 
cipal alterations and improvements relate to Baptism. 
On this question, Dr. Miller gave his opinion decidedly 
in the negative ; observing that at the time when the 
present Authorised Version was made, there was a perfect 
unity of sentiment on the great doctrines of our com- 
mon Christianity ; that this unity no longer subsisted, 
and that therefore not one of the great leading deno- 
minations of the Protestant Church, either in Great 
Britain or in America, could now be expected to have 
the requisite confidence in any of the others to receive a 
version which should be the exclusive production of a 
particular denomination, while a union of effort for such 
a purpose was not to be expected. I was much pleased 
at the ground taken up by Dr. Miller, whose ability as 
a lecturer is of a superior order ; his style being chaste 
and simple, his manner dignified and impressive, and 
his matter distinguished alike for sound Christian philo- 
sophy and learned research. His coadjutor, Dr. Hodge, 
had studied for some time in Germany, after having 
finished his education in America, and has recently pub- 
lished two volumes of a Constitutional History of the 
American Presbyterian Church ; and Dr. Alexander, 
the senior professor, a man of eminent attainments, is 
still better known among all denominations in the United 
States, as " an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no 
guile." 

II. Although Princeton is only about fifty miles 
from New York, the Presbyterian Church has another 
Divinity College in the latter city. The New York 
Theological Seminary was founded in the year 1836. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 233 

The building comprises four lecture-rooms, a chapel, 
a library, and accommodation for thirty students, be- 
sides four large furnished rooms for the accommoda- 
tion of the other students, who board in the neigh- 
bourhood. The establishment consists of a President 
and six Professors ; most of whom, however, as the 
Institution is still unendowed and in its infancy, are 
ministers in the city. The number of students is at 
present 129, and the library consists already of not 
fewer than 16,000 volumes. It was formerly the pro- 
perty of the well-known Leander Van Ess, who had col- 
lected it with great labour during a period of forty years, 
and was purchased for the Institution by one of the Pro- 
fessors, who was sent to Europe for the purpose. 

III. The Western Theological Seminary in Alle- 
ghanytown, Pennsylvania. The establishment of this 
College consists of three Professors, the number of stu- 
dents being forty-two. The college building, which was 
erected by the voluntary contributions of the churches of 
the Synod of Pittsburgh, is said to " present to the eye a 
handsome extension, and to afford every comfort and con- 
venience." It contains, moreover, " thirty rooms fur- 
nished by different churches and individuals within the 
bounds of that Synod ;" of which the First Presbyterian 
Church in Pittsburgh had furnished eight. And as a 
specimen of the manner in which the American Pres- 
byterian Voluntary churches permit themselves to be 
appealed to, for the support of these Schools of the 
prophets, I extract the following simple announcement 
from the annual Report of the Board of Management, for 
the past year, " The Board request, for the payment of 
Professors' salaries and other expenses of the Seminary, 
the sum of 5000 dollars." Of course, the request was 
granted. 

IV. The Union Theological Seminary, or Divinity 
College, in Virginia, has a building of 180 feet long, 
two stories in height, with two separate houses for Pro- 

x 2 



234 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

fessors, and a permanent fund of 59,000 dollars, invested 
at six per cent, for the endowment of Professorships. 
The Institution was founded chiefly for the education of 
pious young men, who could not afford to leave Virginia 
to be educated for the ministry elsewhere. 

V. The Theological Seminary, or Divinity College, 
of Columbia, in South Carolina, has a permanent fund, 
the fruit of voluntary contribution, affording a salary of 
2000 dollars per annum each to two Professors ; the 
third Professorship, which is not yet endowed, being 
supported from year to year from the general funds of 
the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia. Besides 
this fund, the college has an excellent building, towards 
the erection of which Mr. Ewart, a benevolent and 
wealthy member of the Presbyterian church in South 
Carolina, contributed 10,000 dollars. Mr. Lanneau, 
also, a young gentleman of French extraction, and a 
licentiate of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, 
who had resolved to proceed as a missionary to Syria and 
the Holy Land, gave the whole of his private property, 
amounting to 8000 dollars, for the endowment of scho- 
larships in this Institution, that there might be others 
raised up hereafter, to supply his own lack of service 
for his native land. Mr. Lanneau is now a missionary 
in Jerusalem. And — as a further illustration of the de- 
gree in which a spirit of self-denial and of burning zeal 
for the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom pervades 
the Presbyterian church in America, under the Volun- 
tary System, even in those parts of the Union which 
we are too much in the habit of regarding as hopelessly 
delivered over to the tender mercies of the relentless 
slaveholder — the Rev. Dr. Jones, a clergyman of piety 
and learning, and a Professor in this college, recently 
resigned his eligible appointment, to labour as a mission- 
ary among the coloured population in South Carolina 
and Georgia. 

VI. The Lane Seminary, or Divinity College in Ohio, 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 235 

was established with funds collected chiefly in New 
England by the venerable Dr. Beecher, of Cincinnati, 
the Apostle of Temperance. It is one of the best en- 
dowed Institutions of the kind in the United States. 
Its property, consisting of buildings and endowments 
for professorships and scholarships, is estimated at 
300,000 dollars. The establishment consists of four 
professorships, and the special object of its formation 
was to educate Presbyterian ministers for the Far West. 
The following particulars respecting this Institution and 
its venerable founder I extract from a paper entitled 
" Rambles of an Invalid," dated at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
and published in the New York Evangelist, of April 
25th, 1840. 

" Lane Seminary is situated about three miles from 
the city, in the only picturesque spot I have seen in 
Ohio. Scattered near it are a few pleasant private re- 
sidences, and around is a pretty and varied landscape, 
of forest, farm, and hill. The Seminary buildings are 
of plain brick. One is intended for the accommoda- 
tion of the students, and resembles those which serve a 
like purpose at Andover, or New Haven. The other, 
containing the chapel, library, and lecture-rooms, is a 
neat and tasteful edifice, with a fine Doric portico. 

" The Library of the Institution is a noble one ; more 
full probably in Theology and Sacred Literature than any 
other in the United States, with the exception perhaps 
of one. It contains 10,000 volumes, selected with 
admirable judgment, and purchased at exceedingly rea- 
sonable rates, by Professor Stowe, in England, and on 
the continent of Europe. In the whole collection I 
saw no lumbering and useless tomes, thrown in to fill up 
shelves. They are all the * Dii majorum gentium ' of 
books. There are splendid polyglots ; a noble and 
full collection of the Fathers ; Commentaries and Systems 
of Theology without number ; all the masters in philo- 
sophy, ancient and modern ; and rich stores of Ecclesi- 
astical History and Antiquities. How little did the re- 



236 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

spective authors of these laboured and massy works, 
when preparing for the scribe or the press, deem that 
they should live and speak, in a land thousands of miles 
distant — then, a waste howling wilderness ! The 
library does equal credit to the munificent liberality of 
those Christians in the Eastern States who gave the 
money, and to the learning and judgment of the gentle- 
man who selected it. 

" The President of Lane Seminary, as you are well 
aware, is Dr. Beecher. With all his wonderful power 
of physical endurance, and his astonishing mental acti- 
vity, he is now labouring as President of the Institution ; 
Professor of didactic theology ; pastor of one of the 
churches in Cincinnati ; besides performing a great 
amount of miscellaneous labour in the way of public 
lectures and protracted meetings. Probably no living 
minister in the United States has ivorked so much for 
the advancement of vital religion as this theological 
veteran. Some few men may, for a time, have laboured 
even more than Dr. Beecher ; and in a limited period 
have preached more sermons. But he has been long, 
very long in the field, and has crowded the time with an 
astonishing amount of effective exertion. In Connecti- 
cut and Massachusetts, the result of his iron diligence, 
and spirit-stirring zeal will long remain. Revivals with- 
out number have been the attendants on his preaching, 
both in his own congregations and among his brethren 
where he has laboured. His writings have been widely 
circulated, and his little volume on temperance has 
been carried to the ends of the earth." 

Besides the six Theological Seminaries, or Divinity 
Colleges, I have enumerated, there are other twelve of 
these institutions belonging to the Presbyterian church 
alone, and variously endowed, in different parts of the 
Union ; for the Americans have discovered that it is not 
only advisable to have natives of each particular State 
trained up for the ministry in that State rather than men 
from a distance, but to have them trained up upon the 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 237 

spot. The licentiate from Philadelphia and New York 
is in general as little fitted for the singular peculiarities 
of life in the West, as the generality of Scotch preachers 
for the Australian or Canadian colonies. 

When I reflect therefore on the Christian liberality of 
these American Presbyterians, under the Voluntary 
System, who have, within the short period of thirty 
years, established and endowed so many promising in- 
stitutions for the sole object of training up an efficient 
ministry for their beloved church, that their land may 
become the glory of all lands, a land which the Lord 
shall bless, how can I think without burning shame of 
its going down to posterity, that the Rev. Dr. Chalmers 
— the first pulpit orator of his age, and a man, more- 
over, as superior to the great majority of his brethren 
in the excellent qualities of his heart as he is in those 
of his splendid understanding — after exhibiting in his 
own person a rare instance of self-denial in vacating the 
well-endowed situation which he previously held, for a 
theological professorship in Edinburgh, with a paltry 
endowment of £100 a year, that that professorship 
might not be attached, as it had formerly been, as a 
mere make-weight to the benefice of a city minister, was 
actually left by the Scottish public to knock at Lord 
Melbourne's gate, as a humble petitioner to Her Ma- 
jesty's government for an additional endowment ; and, 
in default of obtaining it, was obliged to charge fees 
from the poor students of divinity to eke out his limited 
income ! Shame ! shame upon the people of Scotland ! 
Methinks the Jacobites are right, when they tell us that 
"the last of the Scots" fell at the battle of Killie- 
crankie ; for surely the race must have become extinct 
when such things are permitted to befall the man who 
has shed such a lustre upon his native land ! But the 
truth must be told, however disagreeable : for the fact 
undoubtedly is, that the Christian energies of the Scot- 
tish laity, and their native benovolence, have been borne 
down and annihilated under the enormous pressure of 



238 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

their effete establishment ! Why, if Dr. Chalmers had 
only been a professor of theology for the American 
Presbyterian Church, under the Voluntary System, his 
professorship would have been endowed — splendidly 
endowed — in a fortnight ; while his poor students 
would have been relieved, for all time coming, from the 
payment of fees for being taught theology. But, how- 
ever I may differ from Dr. Chalmers in regard to the 
working and efficiency of the Voluntary System, I con- 
fess I cannot think but with the deepest interest and 
affection of the venerable man — I cannot but revert 
with growing delight to the days when, a student of 
divinity in the university of Glasgow, I was privileged 
to listen from sabbath to sabbath to his burning elo- 
quence and apostolic devotion ! How can I think 
without grateful emotion of the venerable man by 
whom I was admitted myself into the fellowship of the 
Church of Christ ! 

Of the two General Assemblies into which the Ame- 
rican Presbyterian Church has recently been nearly 
equally divided, the one co-operates with the Congre- 
gational Presbyterian churches of New England, in the 
three great objects of Foreign Missions, Home Missions, 
and Clerical Education ; while the other has distinct 
Boards of its own for each of these objects. And as 
each of these three bodies — the two Assemblies and 
the New England churches — is somewhat similar in 
extent to the Church of Scotland, the Assembly, having 
Boards of its own, may be legitimately compared, in its 
missionary and benevolent operations, with the Scottish 
Church. The Assembly I allude to comprises 1270 
ministers, and 1500 churches ; a considerable number 
of these ministers, however, being but recently settled 
over newly-formed congregations, their chuches cannot 
be expected to contribute much for Foreign Missions. 

During the year, therefore, ending the 1st of May, 
1840, this division of the American Presbyterian Church 
contributed, for the support of Foreign Missions to the 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY, 239 

heathen, the sum of 64,054 dollars, or £ 13,6 10 sterling. 
Its missions are situated, 1st. In Northern India ; 2. 
Among the Indians of North America, to the westward 
of the Mississippi ; 3, In Western Africa, in the colony 
of Liberia ; 4. At Singapore, for the empire of China ; 
5. In Siam ; 6. In Texas: two additional missions 
being resolved on for Australia and New Zealand. It 
is scarcely necessary to ask, whether the Church of 
Scotland has any thing to compare with this splendid 
manifestation of Christian benevolence. The reader, 
however, will probably conclude, that the people who 
are doing so much for the promotion of religion abroad 
cannot be so careless on the subject of religion, or so 
ill provided with it, at home, as they are generally re- 
presented, doubtless from interested motives, in Church 
magazines and reviews. If so, he is in the right ; as 
will appear sufficiently from the sequel. 

The Board of Domestic Missions of this division of 
the Presbyterian Church have actually under their super- 
intendence not fewer than 256 missionaries, supplying 
upwards of 600 congregations and missionary districts, 
in the more thinly settled portions of the different 
States and Territories of the Union. To all of these 
missionaries, grants, of various amounts, according to 
their respective localities, are made from the funds of 
the Board ; and, through their zealous labours, during 
the past year, 50 new churches had been organized in 
various parts of the country, 70 places of worship 
erected, and upwards of 3000 additional members 
added to the Presbyterian communion. Besides, during 
the whole period of the existence of this Board, (and it 
has not been many years in operation,) it has been the 
means of calling into existence 400 sabbath-schools; in 
which there have been employed 2200 teachers, under 
whom 15,000 pupils have received religious instruction. 
Three hundred bible-classes, in which 6000 pupils 
have been under instruction, have also been formed 
during the same period ; with 320 Temperance So- 



24-0 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

cieties, comprising upwards of 22,000 members. Nay, 
even in these newly-settled and thinly-peopled districts, 
the missionaries of the Board have, during the past 
year, collected upwards of 3000 dollars, or more than 
600/., for foreign missions ; and 2000 dollars, or 400/. 
for domestic. I did not ascertain the exact amount 
contributed by this division of the Presbyterian church, 
during the past year, for these extensive operations, as 
the statistics of the mission were not published when I 
left Philadelphia ; but the amount of labour performed, 
which I did ascertain, and have thus particularized, will 
enable the reader to form a tolerably correct estimate 
for himself. 

I have already alluded to the Christian machinery, 
so peculiarly and so exclusively American, for enabling 
indigent but pious young men to obtain a suitable edu- 
cation for the gospel ministry. The General Assembly's 
Board of Education received contributions from the 
churches under its care, for this special object, in the 
year 1839, to the amount of 33,930 dollars, or 7120/. 
125. 6d. of our money. Now, when we take into con- 
sideration the exceedingly economical habits of the 
Americans, the general cheapness of the necessaries of 
life in the United States, and the assistance afforded to 
candidates for the ministry, residing in the Divinity 
Colleges, in the shape of tuition and lodging free of 
expense, we shall be enabled to form some idea of the 
vast amount of good that is actually effected with this 
money. The expense of board for a student in the 
commons of the Divinity College, at Princeton, varies 
from one dollar and a quarter to one dollar and three 
quarters per week — from 5s. 6d. to 75. 6d. sterling ; 
and his whole contribution to the " General Expense 
Fund" of the Institution, is only 10 dollars, or about 
two guineas per annum. Washing, for the same period, 
costs only 8 dollars. The whole number of Benefi- 
ciaries who were receiving assistance from the General 
Assembly's Board — some at Divinity Colleges, and 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY, 241 

others at the Preparatory Colleges for General Litera- 
ture and Science — during the year 1839, was 338. 
The Assembly have also a Board of Publication, for re- 
printing and circulating throughout the country, at the 
cheapest possible rate, valuable works on practical 
divinity, as well as others, illustrative of the principles 
and history of the Presbyterian church. 

The contributions of particular churches, under the 
Voluntary System in the United States, for such objects 
as those I have been enumerating, are altogether with- 
out parallel in the established churches of Great 
Britain. At the close of the service I attended in the 
Rev. Dr. Tyng's (Episcopal) church in Philadelphia. 
Dr. T. reminded the congregation that the vestry of 
the church had resolved some time before, with his own 
entire concurrence, that the monthly collections of the 
congregation should be devoted exclusively to the 
liquidation of the church debt, till that object should 
be accomplished ; and that these collections had 
amounted during the past year to 6000 dollars, or 
£1275 ! There was still, he observed, a large sum to 
be raised in this way, and he regretted the circumstance 
exceedingly, as until this debt should be discharged, 
they were debarred, as a Christian congregation, from 
contributing of their substance for the extension of the 
Redeemer's kingdom in the world. And to urge his 
congregation to still further exertion, he informed them 
that during the past year, another church of their own 
communion in the city had contributed as much for 
missionary and other charitable purposes as they had 
collected for the liquidation of their church debt. 

For the four great objects of American benevolence — 
Foreign Missions, Domestic Missions, the Education 
Society, and the Bible Society — the congregation of 
the Scotch Presbyterian Church in Grand-street, New 
York, contribute annually not less than 5500 dollars, 
or i°ll68 sterling, besides an amount in private 

Y 



242 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

donations, equal, as I was told by the pastor himself, 
who is the general almoner of his congregation, to 
10,000 dollars per annum !# The Rev. H. Boardman's 
(Presbyterian) Church contributed at their late annual 
collection for the Board of Education alone, the sum 
of 2000 dollars, or £425. And when the Directors of 
the American Board of Foreign Missions were under 
the necessity, in consequence of a great falling off in 
their collections, through the recent pressure of the 
times, of making a special appeal to the wealthier 
churches on behalf of their numerous missionaries 
among the heathen, the following liberal contribution 
was the gratifying result of that appeal, in the case of 
six of the evangelical churches of the Congregational 
Presbyterian order in Boston and its vicinity. I subjoin 
the amounts contributed by these churches during the 
preceding year, that the reader may see the precise 
effect of the appeal which was thus made to these 
churches during a period of unexampled commercial 
embarrassment. 





1839. 


1840 

Dollars. 


Old South Church, Boston 


1223 


3000 


Park-street Church 


1604 


2700 


Union Church 


906 


1200 


Pine-street Church 


291 


600 


Winthrop Church, Charlestown 


265 


900 


Eliot Church, Roxbury . 


547 


1500 


Total 


4836 


9900 



or, £2103 15s. sterling, more than double the amount 

* The Rev. Dr. M'Elroy, the clergyman I allude to, informed 
me that in the year 1835, when he had much affliction in his 
family, and was consequently obliged to incur an extraordinary 
expenditure, the managers of his church, taking the case into their 
consideration, spontaneously made his salary for that year 7000 
dollars, or i?1487. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 243 

of the preceding year. When shall we hear of six of 
the city churches, either of Edinburgh or Glasgow, 
contributing a sum like this for missions to the heathen 
exclusively, and during a year too of great commercial 
distress ? Why, if there were no other argument in 
favour of the Voluntary System than that it tends to 
open the heart of the Christian man and to make him 
what "the Lord loveth, — a cheerful and liberal giver, — " 
that argument would be sufficient to demonstrate that 
it is precisely the system on which the Divine Re- 
deemer intended that his church should be supported 
in the world. And if there were no other argument 
against a National Establishment than that it dries up 
the fountains of benevolence, and transforms the pro- 
fessing Christian into a niggardly worldling, that argu- 
ment would be sufficient. Even at the close of the 
third year of its existence as a Christian church, the 
congregation of the Rev. Dr. Bethune, of Philadelphia, 
which, at the commencement of that period, amounted 
only to fourteen families, was actually contributing at 
the rate of 1500 dollars, or upwards of £300 per 
annum, for missionary and other charitable purposes ; 
besides contributing for the maintenance of public 
worship an amount far beyond what any congregation 
of the kind would require to pay in Scotland. For 
besides the minister's salary of at least 2000 dollars, 
the organist had a salary of 400, the precentor, 300, 
the door-keeper, 250, and the organ-blower, 50 dollars. 
In short, as Dr. Bethune justly observed, " The 
Americans are accused of being fond of money and 
keen at bargain-making ; I grant it ; they are so. But 
then, there are no people in the world more liberal with 
their money than the Americans. Only show them an 
object worthy of their benevolence, and a hundred 
purses are opened to you at once." 

I have already observed that the other General 



24:4 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 



Assembly of the American Presbyterian Church co- 
operates with the Congregational churches of New 
England in the three great objects of Foreign Missions, 
Home Missions, and Clerical Education. The Dutch 
Reformed Church also co-operates with the New 
England churches in the same great objects ; the 
Episcopalians, the Methodists, and the Baptists, having 
distinct societies of their own of a similar character 
and object. The following is an abstract of the funds 
and operations of the three great religious societies of 
the three Presbyterian denominations above mentioned, 
for the year 1839. 

I. — American Foreign Missionary Society. 
Receipts for the year . 244,169 dollars, or £51,883. 



Number of Missions under the Board 

Ditto stations occupied in these Missions 

Missionaries, of whom 136 are ordained 
Ministers, 18 Physicians, 19 Teachers, 
1 1 Printers, and 1 9 1 female assistant 
Missionaries, chiefly the wives of the 
others, * 

Ditto, sent out during the years 1838 
and 1839 .... 

Native Missionaries, including 9 Preachers 

Printing establishments at Mission sta 
tions ..... 

Churches .... 

Church members 

Pupils in seven seminaries . 

Ditto in 10 boarding-schools 

Ditto in 350 free-schools . 

Copies of Books and Tracts printed 



36 

77 



375 

36 
107 

14 
52 

7311 

363 

344 

16,000 

847,000 



The localities of these Missions are — South Africa, 
West Africa, Greece, Turkey in Asia, Cyprus, Syria and 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY, 245 

the Holy Land, Persia, Southern India, Madras, 
Madura, Ceylon, Siam, China, Singapore, Borneo, the 
Sandwich Islands, the Cherokee Indians, the Choctaws, 
the Pawnees, the Oregon Indians, the Sioux, the 
Ojibwas, the Stockbridge Indians, the New York 
Indians, the Abernaquis. 

II. — American Home Missionary Society. 

Receipts for the year . 80,812 dollars, or £17,182. 
Missionaries and agents . . • 680 

Congregations supplied . . . 846 

Number added to the Churches . , 4750 

In Sabbath-schools and Bible-classes . 60,000 
Members of Temperance Societies . 75,000 

These Missionaries are stationed in twenty-two dif- 
ferent States and Territories, including the British pro- 
vince of Lower Canada ; the principal field of their 
labours being the Western States, which Captain Mar- 
ryat kindly informs us the American Protestants have 
left to Popery and darkness. 

III. — American Education Society. 

Receipts for the year . 51,307 dollars, or £10,902. 
Number of Beneficiaries, or young men 

assisted . . . . . .914 

Of these, in 18 Theological seminaries . 267 

in 28 colleges . . .487 

in 57 academies . . .160 

Earned by the Beneficiaries in manual^) qi Q1C> 
labour, for their own subsistence, over I , ,, ' 
and above the amount received by them f ^, ' 
from the Society ... .J 

The Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists have 
separate organizations for the accomplishment of similar 
objects to those of the societies above mentioned ; 
while the American Bible and Tract Societies afford 

Y 2 



246 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 






common ground for all. During the past year, the lat- 
ter of these Societies published a series of small 
volumes neatly bound, containing a whole library of 
practical divinity, in the works of such writers as Bun- 
yan, Baxter, Newton, &c., and pious persons, in all parts 
of the Union, were engaged on behalf of the Society 
to co-operate gratuitously with its agents in calling at 
every house in their respective districts and disposing 
of these volumes wherever they could at prime cost. 
And so successful was this effort, which was called the 
Volume Enterprise, that in the single city of Charles- 
ton, with a population of 40,000 souls, there were sold 
in this way in the course of six months or thereby not 
fewer than 10,000 of these volumes ; many whole sets, 
of 15 volumes each, having been purchased by reputa- 
ble coloured people, of the class of mechanics and 
shopkeepers, in the city. 

There is no species of moral agency in the present 
day so influential either for good or for evil as the 
periodical press ; and there is none which the British 
churches have so signally neglected. The American 
churches have seized upon this powerful engine with a 
vigorous and successful grasp, and in nothing is the 
difference of the whole character of these churches, as 
compared with those of the mother-country, more 
strongly evinced. Every leading denomination in the 
United States has its religious newspaper, — not only in 
one city, but in every great city of the Union. And 
these newspapers, — instead of being crammed to nausea, 
like certain of our own, with interminable politico-reli- 
gious vituperation of men and measures with which 
religion has nothing to do, or with the beggarly account 
of the desperate struggles of a faction for political 
supremacy and self aggrandizement, under the pretext 
of a sincere desire for the spiritual welfare of the poor,* 

* By the way, if the gentlemen of the University of Oxford 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 247 

— are devoted exclusively to the proper business of 
religion ; being filled wtth a large amount of religious 
intelligence, generally of an interesting and instructive 
character, and calculated alike to inform the understand- 
ing and to impress the heart. The New York Observer, 
a weekly religious newspaper, which circulates chiefly 
among the Presbyterian denominations, is decidedly the 
best conducted journal of the kind in existence. It is 
incomparably superior, as a vehicle of interesting reli- 
gious intelligence and instruction, to the London Record, 
or the Patriot, or the Scottish Guardian ; and its influ- 
ence is proportioned to its general ability, its circula- 
tion being from fifteen to twenty thousand. The 
New York Evangelist, also a Presbyterian journal, 
has a circulation of twelve thousand ; and the 
Religious Intelligencer, of the same city, edited by 
the Rev. Dr. De Witt, of the Dutch Reformed Church, 
has a circulation of from four to five thousand. The 
Methodists, and Baptists, and Episcopalians, have also 
religious journals of their own, with the same great ob- 
ject in view — the diffusion of religious intelligence, 
and the general evangelization of the community. The 
" Christian Advocate," a Methodist journal, has a cir- 
culation of twenty thousand. The " Baptist Advocate " 
has also an extensive circulation, although of what 
amount I am not informed. " The Churchman," a High 
Church Episcopalian journal, has but a limited circula- 
tion ; but the journal of the Evangelical portion of that 
communion, edited by the Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Philadel- 
phia, is highly and deservedly popular. In the latter 
city, the Presbyterians have two clergymen exclusively 

and elsewhere, who recently petitioned Parliament for Church 
Extension, purely on behalf of the poor, should require a patron 
saint and a motto for any future petition of the kind, I can recom- 
mend them to both the one and the other. T mean St. Judas, with 
the following legend : — " Not that he cared for the poor, but because 
he kept the bag, and bare what was put therein." — John xii. 6, 



248 GENERAL RESULTS OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 

employed in editing the two weekly journals of their 
communion in that part of the Union — the Presbyterian 
and the Christian Observer ; of the circulation of which, 
however, I am unable to state the particulars. I have 
already alluded to the religious journals in the Southern 
States, " The Watchman of the South," published at 
Richmond, Virginia, and " The Charleston Observer," 
in South Carolina. There was also a religious news- 
paper lately at New Orleans, and they are quite common 
in the cities of the West. Even the Germans, prover- 
bially slow as they are in their movements, and the 
very reverse of excitable, have not escaped the salutary 
influence which " the freedom of religion " * communi- 
cates to the American mind. They have their religious 
journals also, some in English and others in German. 

The editors of these religious newspapers regularly 
exchange their journals with each other, from the most 
distant parts of the Union ; and thus whatever is in- 
teresting to the churches, or calculated to " make glad 
the City of God," is known by the first post over the 
whole length and breadth of the land, and the pulse of 
every Christian man in the nation beats high at the 
tidings simultaneously. 

In one word, the Christian ministry in the voluntary 
churches of the United States of America, is decidedly 
of a higher character on the one hand, and incomparably 
more efficient on the other, than the clergy of either of 
the Established Churches of Great Britain and Ireland ; 
the machinery which that ministry has brought to bear, 
and to bear successfully, against the iniquity of their 
land, evinces moreover a degree of generalship in the 
peculiar tactics of Christian warfare, to which there is 
no parallel in the Christian strategics of this country ; 
while the benevolent efforts of the American churches 

* By the way, this is a phrase of German origin — JReligions- 
freyheit—1 think I have seen it in Schiller's Dreysbigj'ahriges Kriegs 
Geschichie. 



MINISTERIAL CHARACTER AND EFFICIENCY. 



249 



on behalf of the benighted heathen throughout the 
world, surpass beyond all comparison those of the 
Christian churches of Britain — taking into conside- 
ration the comparative amount of the population of 
the Union, the recent origin of many of the churches, 
and their much less favourable circumstances for acting 
upon the heathen world in the way of Christian mis- 
sions. 

I subjoin a list of the revenues of a few of the 
principal religious and philanthropic societies of the 
United States, for the year ending the 1st of May, 
1840. 



Anti-Slavery Society 


Dollars. 

47,723 


Female Moral Reform Society . 


9,223 


Bible Society 


97,355 


Temperance Society 


22,430 


Foreign Missionary Society 


209,405 


Tract Society . 


117,596 


Education Society . 


51,307 


Colonization Society 


14,584 


Foreign Evangelical Society 


16,210 


Home Missionary Society 


78,345 


Baptist Missionary Society 


57,781 



CHAPTER VI 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 
NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 

The objection which is most frequently urged in this 
country against the Voluntary System in America, is 
that it implies an utter want of religious principle on 
the part of the Government of the United States, and 
demonstrates, to use the phrase of Sir Robert Inglis, 
that that government " has no conscience." Now, 
although the idea that the government of a country has 
a personality distinct from that of the individuals who 
compose it, and is capable of good and evil, and ob- 
noxious to rewards and punishments, distinct from these 
individuals ; although this idea is entertained by many 
worthy persons besides Sir Robert Inglis, it is one which 
is alike unwarranted by Holy Scripture and sound 
philosophy ; nay, it is an idea fraught with the utmost 
danger to the morals of any community, inasmuch as it 
countenances the monstrous supposition that men may 
be guilty of acts in their public or official capacity, for 
which they shall not be held responsible hereafter as 
individuals. The Rev. Thomas Scott, the distinguished 
commentator, has, I am sorry to say, been instrumental, 
in no small degree, in giving currency to this idea, by 
telling us, in his able Commentary, that as govern- 
ments exist only in the present world, and can have no 
existence in a future, they can only be rewarded or 



THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM, ETC. 251 

punished in this present scene of things, and not in a 
future world. 

Now, this is a monstrous idea, and decidedly im- 
moral in its tendency ; inasmuch as it goes directly to 
shift off the responsibility of many questionable actions 
from the proper doers of these actions, and to place 
that responsibility upon something else, to which in 
reality no responsibility can attach. 

Every act of every government upon earth is neces- 
sarily connected in the divine mind with a certain 
amount of distinct and personal responsibility ; and the 
punishment of that act, if an act of evil, will accordingly 
be visited upon every individual who has been con- 
cerned, either directly or indirectly, in its perpetration. 
The waging of an unjust and unnecessary war, for ex- 
ample, being regarded by the divine law as tantamount 
to piracy and murder, every individual who has, either 
directly or indirectly, by his vote in Parliament or his 
services as a member of the Executive, or in any other 
way, been particeps criminis, will be punished accord- 
ingly. And the appointment of an unworthy person to 
the office of a minister in the Church of Christ, being 
regarded by the divine law as a flagrant breach of trust, 
will necessarily involve a corresponding responsibility, 
and subject to condign punishment all parties who have 
been concerned in the appointment, whether it be the 
King as supreme, or the Lord Chancellor, or any no- 
bleman or bishop in the land. I assert, therefore, 
without fear of contradiction, that a government can 
have no conscience, as distinct from that of the indivi- 
duals who compose it. 

Government is a divine ordinance, instituted for the 
attainment of the highest and noblest ends — the glory 
of God, and the happiness of man. But it is not an 
entity ; it has no substantial existence ; it can perform 
no actions ; and, being alike incapable of good and 
evil, no responsibility can attach to it. Responsibility, 



252 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

which follows actions as closely as a shadow the sub- 
stance, attaches to persons only ; and men, conse- 
quently, delude themselves, when they conjure up the 
idea of an official, or governmental responsibility, by 
which their own personal responsibility, as the doers of 
particular actions that concern the public, may be got 
rid of in a future state of being. 

Having thus cleared the idea of government, as a 
divine institution, of the mysticism in which Sir Ro- 
bert Inglis would involve it, I affirm that there is no 
foundation whatever for the charge of infidelity which 
is so frequently preferred against the members of the 
United States Government, on account of the preva- 
lence of the Voluntary System, or the entire separation 
of Church and State, in America. The fact that the 
National Congress of the United States annually elect 
chaplains for each branch of the legislature, whose 
office it is publicly to invoke the Divine blessing upon 
their assemblies, that all their acts may be conducive 
to the glory of God and the happiness of men, gives the 
lie to such a charge. Nay, so far is the Government 
of the United States from being openly and avowedly 
irreligious and infidel in its character and constitution, 
its Hall of Congress is actually transformed every sab- 
bath into a house of prayer, where the chaplains offici- 
ate in turn, and the senators and representatives of the 
people attend divine service as humble worshippers. 
Now, I appeal to the reader whether there is any thing 
like infidelity in all this, or whether it suggests to him 
any such resemblance as is intended in the charge in 
question, to the scenes exhibited of old in infidel and 
revolutionary France. 

The Legislatures of the particular States of the Union 
in like manner elect chaplains at their annual meetings, 
to offer up prayers to Almighty God, and to preach, at 
stated times, before the members of the legislature. On 
a recent occasion, the legislature of the State of New 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 253 

York elected as their chaplain the Rev. Dr. Willson, 
a respectable clergyman in that State, of the Protestant 
denomination called Reformed Presbyterians or Cove- 
nanters ; partly, I presume, as a testimony of respect 
to Dr. Willson, personally, and partly to conciliate the 
communion to which he belonged. The Covenanters, 
holding the Westminster Confession of Faith as their 
Standard of doctrine, conceive that, agreeably to the 
article of the Civil Magistrate, in that Confession, it is 
the duty of that functionary to support the true religion, 
as there set forth, and no other ; and because Her Majesty, 
Queen Victoria, the Civil Magistrate in Great Britain, ob- 
jects to these terms, and declines subscribing the Solemn 
League and Covenant, as Civil Magistrates were expected 
to do in the days of the Long Parliament, they refuse to 
have any thing to do with the Established Church of Scot- 
land, or to take the oath of allegiance which the Govern- 
ment imposes upon all the office-bearers of that church. 
Some of these good people — the relics of a former age 
— have emigrated to America, carrying their Penates 
along with them, as iEneas did from the flames of 
Troy : but they have unfortunately found the Civil 
Magistrate not less refractory there than in Great Bri- 
tain ; and as Mr. Van Buren refuses, in that capacity, to 
subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant, or to do 
any of the other acts and deeds they would prescribe 
to him as prerequisite, they refuse to take the oath of 
allegiance to his government, or to avail themselves of 
their undoubted privileges as citizens, under the star- 
spangled banner of the United States. Such, at least, 
was the case till lately ; the circumstance of having 
taken the oath of allegiance to the United States being 
heretofore regarded as an offence implying excommu- 
nication by the American Covenanters. These hard 
terms, however, have been somewhat modified of late, 
and the oath is now taken by a considerable proportion of 

z 



254 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

the American Covenanters, whose votes are accordingly 
polled with those of the other citizens. 

In the course of his duties as chaplain, Dr. Willson 
was called to preach before the legislature of New York. 
On such an occasion, one might have supposed that the 
grand subjects of" righteousness, temperance, and judg- 
ment to come,"which formed the theme of the eloquence 
of an apostle at the bar of a Roman governor, might 
have afforded "ample scope and verge enough" for a 
Christian divine. Dr. Willson thought otherwise, how- 
ever, and accordingly embraced the opportunity thus 
afforded him of reading a lecture on politics to the 
Senateand House of Representatives of the Empire 
State of New York, — telling them that their government 
was an ill-constructed machine from bottom to top ; 
that bad as the British government was, inasmuch as 
although it had a State religion, it was not the right 
one, theirs was still worse, as it had none ; that the 
whole category of their Presidents consisted of irre- 
ligious men — even Washington being a man of no 
religion, and Jefferson a downright infidel ; and that 
therefore as he could have nothing to do with their 
government, the only Christian duty he could discharge 
towards them was to address to them such a philippic 
as he had just delivered. 

The Americans — at least those of them with whom 
I came in contact in eleven of their States — are re- 
markably temperate people, as well in their use of 
strong language as in that of strong drink. There were 
no cries of " Hear, hear! " uttered on the occasion I refer 
to ; no disorderly calls for " Order!" no directions to 
" Turn him out." The dignity of the pulpit was re- 
spected, even in the case of the individual who had so 
wantonly overstepped its privileges, and Dr. Willson was 
permitted to retire in silence. He was given to under- 
stand, however, that his services as chaplain to the legis- 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 255 

lature would not be required in future. It is impossible 
to entertain the slightest feeling of respect for the 
understanding of a man who could construe into a point 
of duty such an outrage as I have detailed ; but the 
whole fact, taken in connexion with what I have stated 
above, sufficiently demonstrates that neither the ge- 
neral government of the United States, nor the govern- 
ments of particular States are infidel governments ; but 
that, on the contrary, they desire to hallow their political 
assemblies with the services of religion. 

But if it is asked, Why do they not establish and sup- 
port religion? I reply, because, in the first place, they find 
it quite unnecessary to do so, as I have already demon- 
strated ; secondly, because the thing is impracticable, 
for the Americans of the present day would just as soon 
submit to a foreign power as tolerate an established 
church ; and, thirdly, because they universally believe 
that it can never be proved from Holy Scripture to be 
the duty of any government to do any thing of the 
kind. 

The fundamental principle of a national establish- 
ment of religion is simply this : " The Christian religion 
being a Divine Revelation for the advancement of the 
moral, spiritual, and eternal welfare of man, it is the 
bounden duty of every government upon earth, and not 
merely of every Christian government, to promote the 
prevalence and the influence of the Christian religion to 
the very utmost." Now I am quite confident that Mr. 
Van Buren,* the present President of the United 

* Mr. Van Buren, as his name sufficiently indicates, is of Dutch 
origin, and was formerly in the habit of attending divine service in 
the Dutch Reformed Church at Utica, in the State of New York, 
which was then under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Bethune, now 
of Philadelphia. I presume he is still a member of that com- 
munion. 

Mr. Van Buren commenced his career as a lawyer, and happening 
at an early period in his professional course to conduct a case for a 



256 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

States, would not only be willing to subscribe to this 
Christian sentiment in his public and official character, 
if the thing were at all necessary, but would do so as 
cordially as Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Indeed, 
there is no class of men in any country so thoroughly 
convinced of the absolute necessity of the Christian 
religion for the maintenance of the civil institutions of 
society, as the statesmen of America. A monarchy 
may do without religion, and that is perhaps the very 

poor countryman, the latter gave him, as the only payment he could 
make him, an order for land in the western portion of the State of 
New York, observing at the time, he did not know whetherit would 
ever be of any value or not. The order was for one of the mili- 
tary grants made to the soldiers of the Revolution by Act of Con- 
gress. Whether the man had been a soldier himself and had ob- 
tained it for his own services, I cannot say ; but the probability is, 
that he had not, as there was no restriction upon the orders, which 
were consequently disposed of for the most part, and passed from 
hand to hand, for whatever they were supposed to be worth. Mr. Van 
Buren kept the order in retentis for a good many years. In the 
mean time, population had been advancing westward, and the district 
in which the land described in his order was situated, came at length 
to be of considerable importance ; insomuch that the first estimate 
that was given him of its value was u 70,000 dollars and rapidly 
rising." This was the groundwork of the fortune which placed Mr. 
Van Buren in such a position in society as enabled him, through 
his own professional tact and great ability, to attain the high office 
he now holds as President of the United States. 

As I spent a day at Washington on my return from Charleston, I 
did myself the honour of paying my respects, in passing, to the Pre- 
sident, to whom I had been favoured with letters of introduction 
through the kindness of friends in New York and Philadelphia. I 
was received by his Excellency — a tall, stout, good-looking man — 
with great urbanity and frankness of manner, and without any of the 
stiffness and hauteur to which I confess I had been somewhat accus- 
tomed elsewhere, especially on the part of military Representatives 
of Royalty. The President's house reminds one of the residence of 
an English nobleman. It is of white marble, and is built on a 
rising ground on the beautiful banks of the Pot6mac. The Capitol, 
which is also of white marble, is one of the finest buildings I have 
ever seen. It is splendidly situated on a hill, overlooking the river 
and the city of Washington, 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 257 

reason why we are able to do with so little of it in 
many parts of Great Britain and Ireland, where in all 
time past a standing army has been the regular substi- 
tute for religion among the people ; but a republic — 
with universal suffrage as the law of the land, and the 
first magistrate of the nation elected directly by the 
sovereign people — would be unable to maintain its 
existence for a single twelvemonth without the conser- 
vative influence of Christianity. This is universally 
acknowledged in America ; for even the well-educated 
and philosophical infidels of that country uniformly 
admit that the only hope of the permanence and sta- 
bility of the civil institutions of their country depends 
upon the degree in which the Christian religion can be 
promoted among the great body of the people. While, 
therefore, the cry of Sir Robert Inglis and his associ- 
ates is, in plain English, nothing else than, " Church 
Extension, or the Tories to the wall ! " the cry in Ame- 
rica is, " Church Extension, or anarchy and revolution ! " 
" I do not know," says M. de Tocqueville, " whether 
all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion, 
for who can search the human heart ? but I am certain 
that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance 
of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar 
to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the 
whole nation and to every rank in society.'* 

" The Americans combine the notions of Christianity 
and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impos- 
sible to make them conceive the one without the other ; 
and with them this conviction does not spring from that 
barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the 
soul rather than to live." 

" I have known of Societies formed by the Americans 
to send out ministers of the gospel into the new West- 
ern States, to form schools and churches there, lest 
religion should be suffered to die away in those remoter 
settlements, and the rising States be less fitted to enjoy 

z 2 



258 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

free institutions than the people from which they ema- 
nated. I have met with wealthy New Englanders who 
had abandoned the country in which they were born, in 
order to lay the foundations of Christianity and of free- 
dom on the banks of the Missouri, or in the prairies 
of Illinois."* 

There is no question, therefore, in America about the 
absolute necessity of promoting the prevalence and 
strengthening the influence of Christianity in the United 
States. The only question is about the best means of 
accomplishing this object. On this point, there is cer- 
tainly a great difference between the British and the 
American governments, in point of practice as well as 
of opinion. Acknowledging the necessity and the duty 
of promoting Christianity to the utmost in the British 
dominions, the British Government endeavour to dis- 
charge this duty by setting up the system of Episcopacy, 
or rather of Prelacy, as the Established State Church, in 
England and Ireland, and the system of Presbytery as 
the Established State Church, in Scotland ; giving at 
the same time a regium donum to the Presbyterians in 
Ireland, and a sop to the Roman Catholics at Maynooth. 
In Demerara and the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch 
Church is made the State Church, under the same Im- 
perial Government; and the Roman Catholic in the Isle 
of France, in Malta, and in Lower Canada ; while in 
New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land there are not 
fewer than four State Churches — the Episcopalian, the 
Presbyterian, the Roman Catholic, and the Methodist. 

Now it must be evident to any man of common un- 
derstanding, that such procedure on the part of any 
government — and let Sir Robert Inglis remember, with 
ail his antipathy to Popery, that it was by his own party 
exclusively that Popery was originally established and 

* Democracy in America — Reeves's Translation. 2nd American 
Edition, pp. 286, 287. New York, 1838. 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. . 25 9 

salaried by the State, not only in Canada, but in the Isle 
of France and in New South Wales — cannot possibly 
be the result of fixed principle, or in conformity to the 
dictates of an enlightened conscience. The truth, to 
use the language of the poet, is every where 

Simplex et unura : 

it is not different, therefore, in Canada from what it is 
in England, nor in the Isle of France from what it is in 
Scotland. The procedure of the British Government, 
therefore, in the case in question, is not a matter of prin- 
ciple, but a matter of mere expediency. It is pre- 
cisely like that of an injudicious nurse with a spoiled 
child, who does not give the child what she knows to be 
good for it, but simply what it cries for. In one word, 
it is undeniable that " the British Government? to use Sir 
Robert Inglis's own phraseology, " never had a conscience 
in matters of religion, even in its best and palmiest and 
Toryest times? 

Nay, it is a singular fact that it was this very charge — 
the charge of having no conscience in matters of religion 
— that the Christian people of America preferred against 
the British Government, at the very moment when they 
were tightening the cords of their revolutionary drum 
to beat the loud Reveillez throughout the thirteen insur- 
gent colonies ! In the year 1775, the year before the 
Declaration of American Independence, this is the lan- 
guage they make use of in one of their public Mani- 
festos, in reference to the British Government, and its 
then recent and insane assumption of " a right to make 
laws to bind the colonists in all cases whatsoever :" " By 
virtue of this power,'' the Americans rightly observe, 
" they have established Popery in Quebec, and the arbi- 
trary laws of France ; and why may they not do the 
same in Pennsylvania or North Carolina ?"* The Bri- 

* Hist, of the Presb. Ch. in America. By Prof. Hodge, of 
Princeton, New Jersey. Vol. ii, 494. Philadelphia, 1840, 



260 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

tish Government of these days, Sir Robert Inglis well 
knows, was a Tory Government out and out — a Tory 
Government all over. And yet it was in these very 
times of unmingled Toryism, that the American Volun- 
taries preferred against it the charge of having no con- 
science in matters of religion. Let Sir Robert answer 
them — if he can. 

In contradistinction to this procedure of the British 
Government in the matter of religion, the members of 
the Government of the United States, of whom, as I 
have shown already, there are not a few who are men of 
piety and prayer, and who, I have every reason to be- 
lieve, have consciences as enlightened as that of any 
churchman in Great Britain, virtually declare as fol- 
lows : — 

" Believing that it is a matter of indispensable ne- 
cessity to the moral welfare and political existence of 
this great nation, that the influence of the Christian re- 
ligion should be promoted to the utmost over the whole 
extent of the American Union ; and believing, also, in 
common with the Christian people of all denominations 
in the United States, that the most effectual means of 
attaining this great end is simply that of giving entire 
freedom to religion — relieving it, on the one hand, from 
the trammels of State patronage, and, on the other, from 
the yoke of oppression, and thereby rendering it as free 
to the citizens of this Republic as the air they breathe, 
or as the light of heaven — we hereby, in the name and 
by the authority of the people of the United States, de- 
clare Religion to be free from henceforth throughout this 
Union ; bidding it God speed with all our hearts, and 
desiring that it may have free course and be glorified in 
our land." 

And this, forsooth, is to be interpreted — merely be- 
cause it suits the ambitious views of a political faction 
so to interpret it — as the act of an Infidel Government ! 
The good Lord deliver us from Christianity itself, if 
this be infidelity ! 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 261 

I have now been living under what men call the 
Christian Government of Great Britain, both at home 
and abroad, these forty years, and I confess I am 
still as much as ever in the dark as to where the Chris- 
tianity of the British Government is centred, or in what 
it consists. If I knock at the great gate of Windsor 
Castle, and ask if it resides in the person of the Sove- 
reign, a hollow voice from the tombs, like that of his 
late Majesty, King George the Fourth, will answer, No ! 
If I present myself at the bar of the House of Lords, 
and ask if it is centred there, my Lords Melbourne and 
Brougham will shake their heads significantly in the 
negative, and Lord Lyndhurst will second the motion 
of the noble and learned lord. If I repeat the question 
in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Inglis, sick at 
heart at his late defeat, will groan a melancholy nega- 
tive, while Mr. Hume and Mr. Daniel O'Connell 
vociferate, No ! If I ask whether it resides in the legis- 
lation or in the executive of the empire, I shall be told 
to look at Ireland — a country whose intellectual and 
moral condition for three centuries past might disgrace 
even the government of Turkey. In short, the Christi- 
anity of the British Government is a subtle and evan- 
escent quality, which perpetually eludes the search of 
the inquirer, and of which there is no possibility of 
fixing the habitat. It is neither in the head nor in the 
heart, nor in any of the members of the government. 
It is precisely like the infallibility of the Church of 
Rome, which, we are told, is neither in the pope, nor 
in the cardinals, nor in a general council, nor in a 
single bishop or priest of the whole fraternity ; and 
yet there is no denying the reality of the thing itself! 
Or rather, it is like a squirrel in a native fig-tree in an 
Australian forest — there is no doubt the creature is in 
the tree, for the black fellows saw it go in ; but where it 
is exactly among the thick foliage no man can tell. 
For my own part, despairing of ever finding anything 



262 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

like Christianity as the master-spring or ruling principle 
of any government upon earth, till the predicted period 
shall arrive, when " the kingdoms of this world shall have 
become the one great kingdom of the Lord, and of his 
Christ," I confess I shall be satisfied in future when 
successful in the humbler search after Christianity 
among the people. For, whenever I find any measure 
of this heaven-born and holy principle among the people 
of any country, I feel assured that it will operate in a 
great variety of ways upon the government of that 
country ; compelling that government — I mean by a 
moral compulsion — to " do many things," which it 
would not otherwise have done, simply because, like 
Herod, it " fears the people." The natural tendency of 
all governments, whether monarchical, aristocratical, or 
republican, is to the abuse of power ; and it is the pre- 
valence of Christianity among the people alone, that is 
able to keep this tendency in check. 

We have long been accustomed to hear much of the 
power of the people of the United States for evil ; let 
us compare their influence for good in one or two par- 
ticulars with that of the people of Great Britain. There 
has recently been a considerable degree of agitation in 
this country to put down the public and authorized 
profanation of the Sabbath ; and the clergy of Scotland 
in particular distinguished themselves by making a 
vigorous effort, a few years ago, to put a stop to rail- 
road travelling on the Sabbath in the vicinity of the city 
of John Knox — the Scottish capital. But they were 
unfortunately unsuccessful in that effort, and they found, 
doubtless to their great sorrow and disappointment, 
that while they and their forefathers had been fast 
asleep for a century and upwards on the downy bed of 
their National Establishment, the enemy had all the 
while been busily employed in sowing tares in their 
neglected field ; and that the crop of irreligion and in- 
fidelity which had consequently grown up throughout 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 263 

the land, was a great deal too rank and vigorous for 
all their efforts to root it out. 

Now to contrast this result with the influence of the 
Christian people under the Voluntary System in the 
United States : In the Sovereign State of Connecticut, 
containing a population of from 300,000 to 400,000 
souls, the influence of the Christian people upon their 
government is so strong and so direct, that there is not 
a single locomotive engine, or steamboat, or stage 
coach, permitted to ply within the whole territory of the 
State on the Christian Sabbath. 

So far, indeed, from the Government of the United 
States being an infidel government, it has been declared 
by the highest authority in the country — Chancellor 
Kent, of New York — that " Christianity is part and 
parcel of the law of the land." No evidence is admis- 
sible in an American court of justice, if the witness 
acknowledges beforehand that he does not believe in 
the existence of a God, and a future state of rewards 
and punishments ; and in a recent action for damages 
in the city of Philadelphia, it was ruled by the Court, 
that a contract for labour to be performed on the Sab- 
bath was null and void in the eye of the law. As this 
is a case which will doubtless be somewhat interesting 
to the Christian reader in England, I subjoin the fol- 
lowing notice of it, which I extract from the Philadel- 
phia Christian Observer, of April 30, 1840. 

" Interesting Decision. — In the District Court on the 
2nd of April, a nonsuit was entered in a case that is of 
considerable interest to livery-stable keepers, and others 
who transact business on Sunday. 

" The suit was brought by Mr. S. Berrill against 
Townsend Smith, Ridgway Gibbs, Samuel Hancock, 
and Samuel Smith, and was an action for damages in- 
curred as follows : — Some months since, these young 
men engaged a pair of horses and carriage from Mr. 
Berrill, who is a livery-stable keeper, for a pleasure ex- 
cursion on Sunday. The horses were obtained, and in 



264 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

the course of the day, from excessive driving, or some 
other cause, one of them died, and the other was 
severely injured. This suit was brought to recover 
damages for the loss and injury to the horses. 

" Judge Stroud, after hearing a portion of the evi- 
dence on the part of the plaintiff, ordered a nonsuit to 
be entered, on the ground that a contract entered into 
for the performance or fulfilment of work upon the Sab- 
bath was not legal, and therefore the plaintiff could not 
make out his case." 

But the Americans regard the entire separation of 
Church and State not only as a matter of expediency, 
but as being in strict accordance with the demands of 
righteousness and justice. Every member of society, 
they maintain, has certain personal rights, connected 
with the discharge of certain personal duties, and im- 
plying a certain amount of personal responsibility. 
These rights exist antecedently to all human govern- 
ments, and no government can rightfully interfere with 
their exercise ; simply because no government can dis- 
charge the duties to which the individual is bound, or 
relieve him of the responsibility which these duties 
imply. It is the bounden duty, for example, of every 
man to worship God ; and, as no government can 
either discharge this duty for any man, or relieve him 
from the responsibility to which it binds him, every 
man has an indefeasible right, antecedently to the 
existence of all government, to discharge this duty 
agreeably to the light of his own conscience, or, in 
other words, to worship God in his own way. The 
transaction is entirely between the individual and his 
Maker ; and it is one in which a " stranger," or third 
party, or human government, has no right to inter- 
meddle. 

In reply to this reasoning, I urged on certain of my 
American friends the received doctrine of all who hold 
the establishment principle in the National Churches of 
Europe ; viz. that every human government stands in 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 265 

the same relation to its citizens, or subjects, as a parent 
does to his children ; and that, as the parent is bound 
to provide spiritual instruction for his children, or, in 
the language of Scripture, " to train them up in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord," every government 
is, in like manner, bound to provide the means of 
spiritual instruction for its citizens or subjects. The 
Americans, however, flatly denied that there was any 
parallelism or resemblance between the two cases of 
relationship ; maintaining, on the one hand, that the 
sole object of civil government is, that men may be en- 
abled to lead quiet and peaceable lives ; and that the 
church of Christ, on the other, is a purely spiritual 
institution, with which civil governments have nothing 
to do, beyond the duty of protecting it, so long as it 
keeps the peace of society ; the Lord Christ himself 
having insured both its existence and its maintenance 
in the world. Having thus stated their principles, my 
American friends required me to produce any passages 
from Holy Scripture to prove that the relation subsist- 
ing between a civil government and its citizens or sub- 
jects, is the same as that which subsists between a 
parent and his children, or that Christ has given to civil 
governments any right to interfere in the concerns of 
his church, even in the way of assuming the cost of the 
maintenance of his ministers, and thereby taking it out 
of the hands of those to whom he has himself expressly 
assigned it, I confess I was unable to find such pas- 
sages as were at all satisfactory, either to myself or to 
my American friends ; for I believe no such passage 
exists. In short, the fundamental principle of all civil 
establishments of religion, viz. that the civil govern- 
ment has other duties in regard to the Church of Christ 
than that of simply protecting it, is a mere petitio prin- 
cipii, or begging of the question — a mere taking for 
granted the very thing to be proved. 

Determined, however, to get at the entire merits of 

2 A 



266 THE VOLUTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

the case, I observed to my American friends, that the 
Voluntary System necessarily reduces the minister to a 
state of mere dependence on his people ; and that we 
considered it one of the excellences of the establish- 
ment system, that it placed the clergy far above such 
dependence. In reply, I was told, that such a state of 
dependence on the part of the American clergy was 
entirely imaginary, and did not exist ; that the minister, 
being generally engaged at a salary sufficient for his 
respectable maintenance, was not supposed to be under 
any personal obligations to his people for that salary, as 
he rendered them at least a fair equivalent ; that this 
state of things tended to strengthen and endear the 
pastoral relation ; and that that relation, of itself, gave 
the minister such an influence over his people, that it 
was actually necessary to have some check upon him, 
lest, in certain circumstances, which unfortunately did 
occur occasionally, that influence should become so 
great as to obstruct the discharge of discipline. This, 
it was added, was one of the peculiar advantages of the 
institution of the eldership in the Presbyterian church ; 
for when a minister became either heretical in doctrine, 
or exceptionable in character and conduct, the elder- 
ship constituted a body to which the Church could look 
with confidence to support her in the discharge of dis- 
cipline towards that minister, when his congregation 
might either be led astray with his sophistry, or be dis- 
posed to exercise undue sympathy towards him. 

" But," I observed, finally, " the Voluntary System 
does not succeed in many parts of England." " How 
can it possibly succeed there?" replied my American 
friends ; " look at yonder puny, stunted shrub, vege- 
tating under the oak-tree, that intercepts the genial sun- 
light, and kills it with the drop from its leaves ; is it 
possible that a voluntary church should prosper under 
precisely similar circumstances ? No ! the voluntary 
church in England must necessarily be of sickly growth, 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 267 

under the shadow of your enormous establishment, 
which interposes itself between it and the nation's cha- 
rities, and looks down, as we are told, with a feeling of 
supercilious disdain on all that are not within its pale. 
The Voluntary System can never prosper in England, 
till religion is set entirely free, as you see it here, from 
the trammels of the State." 

I have already detailed certain of the results of the 
Voluntary System in America, in providing an extent of 
church accommodation for the Christian people un- 
equalled in this country, and in elevating the character, 
and greatly increasing the efficiency, of the clergy. 
But the increase of moral power which Christianity 
derives in America from the entire separation of Church 
and State is incalculable, and can only be credited by 
one who has himself visited the country and witnessed 
the actual result. 

" Religion," says an American divine, " to be com- 
pletely successful, must be free. Experience shows 
that, in this country, it has the energy of liberty : it 
* has free course, and is glorified. ' Beyond a doubt, it 
will ultimately triumph. At this time (1829), there 
are more than a million of communicants, in the several 
Protestant churches in the United States — probably a 
larger proportion than exists in any other country in 
the world. The number increases at the rate of one 
hundred thousand a-year. Such increase is perfectly 
unexampled since the days of the apostles. Religion 
will triumph ; and no power on earth can prevent it. 
And it will triumph precisely because it is perfectly 
free. The intelligent clergy of all denominations un- 
derstand this ; and would be the very foremost to op- 
pose any effort to bind religion to the car of State.* 



* High Church Principles opposed to the Genius of our Repub- 
lican Institutions. By John Holt Rice, D.D., Minister of the First 
Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia. Washington, 1829, 



268 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

" Upon my arrival in the United States," says M. de 
Tocqueville, " the religious aspect of the country was 
the first thing that struck my attention, and the longer 
I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great 
political consequences resulting from this state of 
things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France, I 
had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the 
spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed 
to each other ; but in America, I found that they were 
intimately united, and that they reigned in common 
over the same country. My desire to discover the 
causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. 
In order to satisfy it, I questioned the members of all 
the religious sects ; and I more especially sought the 
society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the 
different persuasions, and who are more especially 
interested in their duration. As a member of the 
Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly 
brought into contact with several of its priests, with 
whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of 
these men I expressed my astonishment, and I explained 
my doubts : I found that they differed upon matters of 
detail alone, and that they mainly attributed the 
peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the 
separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to 
affirm, that during my stay in America, I did not meet 
with a single individual, whether of the clergy or of the 
laity, who was not of the same opinion upon this 
point."* 

" As long as religion is sustained by those feelings, 
propensities and passions which are found to occur 
under the same forms, at all the different periods of 
history, it may defy the efforts of time ; or at least it 
can only be destroyed by another religion. But when 
religion clings to the interests of the world, it becomes 

* Democracy in America, page 290. 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 269 

almost as fragile a thing as the powers of earth. It is 
the only one of them all which can hope for immortal- 
ity ; but if it be connected with their ephemeral 
authority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall with 
those transient passions which supported them for a 
day. The alliance which religion contracts with 
political powers must needs be onerous to itself; since 
it does not require their assistance to live, and by 
giving them its assistance it may be exposed to decay."* 

" In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united 
to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in 
decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. 
The living body of religion has been bound down to 
the dead corpse of superannuated polity : cut but the 
bonds which restrain it, and that which is alive will 
rise once more."f 

" There are certain populations in Europe whose 
unbelief is only equalled by their ignorance and their 
debasement, whilst America, one of the freest and 
most enlightened nations in the world, fulfils all the 
outward duties of religion with fervor.";): 

" Religion in America takes no direct part in the 
government of society, but it must nevertheless be 
regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of 
that country ; for if it does not impart a taste for 
freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. "§ 

" It may be believed without unfairness, that a 
certain number of Americans pursue a peculiar form of 
worship, from habit more than from conviction. In the 
United States, the sovereign authority is religious, and 
consequently hypocrisy must be common ; but there is 
no country in the whole world in which the Christian 
religion retains a greater influence over the souls of 
men than in America ; and there can be no greater 

* Democracy in America, page 292. f lb. p 295. 

J lb. p. 289. § lb. p. 286. 

2 a 2 



270 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 






proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human 
nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt 
over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. 

" In the United States, religion exercises but little 
influence upon the laws and upon the details of public 
opinion ; but it directs the morals of the community, 
and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the State. 

" I do not question that the great austerity of 
manners which is observable in the United States, 
arises, in the first instance, from religious faith. Re- 
ligion is often unable to restrain man from the number- 
less temptations of fortune, nor can it check that 
passion for gain which every incident of his life con- 
tributes to arouse ; but its influence over the mind of 
woman is supreme, and women are the protectors of 
morals. There is certainly no country in the world 
where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in 
America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly 
or more worthily appreciated."* 

Such are the deliberate opinions of an eminently 
qualified and singularly unprejudiced observer, in regard 
to the influence of religion in the United States. M. 
de Tocqueville is a French barrister of high standing ; 
and being a Roman Catholic, as he tells us himself, his 
estimate of the salutary influence of Protestant Chris- 
tianity upon the great mass of the American people 
must be peculiarly worthy of attention. In that esti- 
mate I entirely concur, as well as in M. de Tocque- 
ville's opinion as to the cause to which the salutary 
influence in question is to be ascribed — I mean, the 
entire freedom of religion, and the prevalence of the 
Voluntary System in America. M. de Tocqueville is a 
member of an established church in his own country, 
as well as myself: in either case, therefore, the testi- 
mony offered can scarcely be open to suspicion. The 

* Democracy in America, page 235, 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 271 

reader will doubtless permit me, in passing, to recom- 
mend to him the work of M. de Tocqueville, if he is 
at all desirous of gaining a thorough knowledge of 
America and her institutions. M. de Tocqueville is 
decidedly the ablest European writer who has yet 
written on the subject — incomparably superior to the 
whole herd of common-place writers on America of our 
own country, including even the Marryats and the 
Martineaus, the Halls, and the Trollopes ; all of whom 
bring with them a whole host of petty prejudices of 
their own to the consideration of a subject which is 
evidently too magnificent for their intellectual grasp. 

There is one point on which the conscience of the 
American Government appears peculiarly alive to a 
sense of its interest and its duty ; I mean, the general 
education of the people. There is no country in the 
world in which such gigantic efforts have been made 
with reference to this great object as in America, con- 
sidering the circumstances of the country and the 
sparseness of its population. In the States to the 
northward of the river Potomac, nearly one fourth of 
the whole population is at school ;* and in those to the 
southward of that river, the proportion, although con- 
siderably smaller, is rapidly increasing. In some of 
the States there is a school-fund, arising from various 
sources, the proceeds of which are appropriated for the 
erection of school-houses and the payment of salaries 
to the teachers ; in the others, these important objects 
are met from the ordinary revenue. 

At the close of the revolutionary war, when it was 
found necessary to fix the boundaries of the several 
States, the State of Connecticut having claims, under 
its colonial charter, on lands in the West, agreed to 

* Such a proportion is incredible in Europe; but it must be 
borne in mind, that in America, where there is nothing, as in this 
country, to prevent early marriages, the number of children is far 
greater than it is in Europe. 



272 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

compromise these claims for a tract of land equal to the 
actual extent of the State, or a hundred miles in length 
and sixty in breadth. It was agreed, moreover, at the 
recommendation of some patriot of the day, to appropriate 
the whole proceeds of the sale of this land, which was to 
be sold under the authority of the State, for the purposes 
of education. Shortly after the war, a considerable por- 
tion of it, being then supposed to be of little value, 
was sold for a mere trifle. It has since, however, 
been under better management, and the fund arising 
from the subsequent sales now affords an annual revenue 
amounting to one dollar and a quarter for each child, 
male or female, from four to sixteen years of age, in 
the State. 

Towards the close of the year 1838, the School 
Fund of the State of New York amounted to nearly two 
millions of dollars. The whole number of children 
taught in the State was 528,913 ; and as the whole 
number between the ages of five and sixteen amounted 
only to 539,747, it followed that 48 out of every 49 of 
these children were receiving education in the public 
schools of the State. The amount of public money dis- 
tributed to the school districts in the year 1839, was 
335,882 dollars, while the sum paid by the people in 
addition to that amount was 477,848. There was, 
therefore, paid for general education, partly by the 
government, but principally by the people, in the State 
of New York, during the past year, a sum equal in 
British money to £172,917. The average salaries of 
the male teachers, paid from the School Fund, were 
about fourteen dollars a month ; and the average num- 
ber of children at school in each school district, was 
fifty-four. Education is, therefore, more generally dif- 
fused at this moment in the State of New York than it 
is even in Scotland. 

It is also worthy of particular observation, that the 
Holy Scriptures of the authorised version are read daily, 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 273 

under the authority of the New York Legislature, in all 
the schools of the State. In the estimation of the 
Roman Catholics of New York, this is regarded as a 
great grievance ; as they find the association of their 
children with the Protestant children in the public 
schools of the State, extremely dangerous to the in- 
terests of Popish Christianity. It is only very recently 
that the Roman Catholics, who are chiefly foreigners 
from Ireland, have come to be of any importance, as a 
portion of the general population, in the State of New 
York ; but as the two great political parties into which 
the general population is divided throughout the Union 
— the Whigs and the Democrats — are at present so 
nicely balanced, that the smallest additional weight 
gives the preponderance to either party, the Roman 
Catholics of New York have unexpectedly found them- 
selves, in a country in which they are really " aliens in 
birth, in language, and in religion," in precisely the same 
position as the Irish members of Parliament in England. 
Presuming on this accidental and adventitious import- 
ance, as a political party, the Roman Catholics of New 
York presented a petition to the Legislature during its 
annual meeting in May last, setting forth the grievance 
of having their children educated where the Protestant 
version of the Scriptures was publicly read, and solicit- 
ing an endowment from the State for schools of their 
own. Apprehensive lest, in the peculiar circumstances 
of the country as to political parties, this petition might 
be granted, or the admirable school system of the State 
be otherwise tampered with, the congregation of the 
Scotch Presbyterian Church in Grand-street, New York, 
of which the Rev. Dr. McElroy is the highly esteemed 
pastor, fell upon a notable expedient to defeat the pro- 
ject. That congregation had a school fund of their 
own, arising from a mortification or bequest, and 
amounting to 50,000 dollars, invested at seven per cent. 
It had, therefore, been enabled to expend in the gra- 



274 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

tuitous education of youth, chiefly of Scottish parentage, 
upwards of 3000 dollars per annum ; its schools were 
in a state of great efficiency, and it had never received 
any assistance from the public treasury. In these cir- 
cumstances, a memorial was presented to the Legisla- 
ture by the pastor and congregation, setting forth what 
they had done, and were still doing for the education 
of youth, without having received any assistance from 
the State ; but soliciting that, in the event of separate 
endowments being granted for schools not under the 
general State management, their claims for such an 
endowment might be taken into favourable considera- 
tion. The Legislature, probably foreseeing from this 
application, that, in the event of their establishing a pre- 
cedent for separate endowments, there would be no end 
to applications of the kind, refused to grant the prayer 
of the Roman Catholic petition. 

In the State of Pennsylvania, which the Americans 
call the Key-stone State, and which, for its great ex- 
tent of eligible land, its mineral wealth, and its superior 
facilities for internal communication, is perhaps inferior 
to none in the Union, the Germans, who constitute 
about one-half of the entire population, have hitherto 
been rather a dead weight upon the energies of the 
community ; backward in regard to education, and un- 
willing to allow themselves to be taxed for internal im- 
provements, of which they can neither be made to 
appreciate the value, nor to discern the necessity. 
Where the Germans are settled in small communities, 
in the midst of an American population, they must ne- 
cessarily " go ahead," to use the American phrase, with 
the moving mass around them. But when they form 
the mass themselves, they prefer remaining stationary. 
Even, however, under these less favourable circum- 
stances, the cause of education has latterly been making 
prodigious progress in Pennsylvania, and the present 
aspect of the State is gratifying in the extreme. 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 275 

By the census of 1830, the population of Pennsyl- 
vania was 1,348,233 ; and at the usual rate of increase 
in the United States— viz., one-third every ten years — 
it must now be 1,797,644. The superficial extent of 
Pennsylvania is 47,000 square miles — more than two- 
thirds the size of all England. Exclusive of the city 
and county of Philadelphia, which are under a different 
arrangement, the whole of this territory is divided into 
1050 school districts, the rateable inhabitants of each 
of which have the power of taxing themselves for the 
support of education ; and in the event of their so do- 
ing, they receive from the State treasury a sum nearly 
equal to the whole amount of their assessment. The 
law establishing this provision was enacted so recently 
as the first of April, 1834,* and during the following 
year the whole number of children attending school 
did not exceed 100,000 ; whose average attendance dur- 
ing the year was under three months and a half. It ap- 
pears, however, from the able report of Francis Shunk, 
Esq., Superintendent of Common Schools, which was 
read in the House of Representatives, at Harrisburgh, 
Pennsylvania, March 2d, 1 840, that during the four years 
that have since elapsed, the number of scholars has in- 
creased to 254,908, the average period of whose at- 
tendance at school is now upwards of five months ; the 
number of Primary Schools in the State being now 
5649. During the last four years, the sum of 624,549 
dollars, or 132,725^. sterling had been expended exclu- 
sively in the erection of school-houses ; the whole ex- 

* The previous law of 1809 had established a free school in each 
district of the State ; hut these schools were found exceedingly in- 
efficient. There are still, however, 163 of the 1050 school districts 
that refuse to tax themselves under the new arrangement, and pre- 
fer the old law and the free schools. I suspect these districts are 
those chiefly that are inhabited by the German population; for while 
the whole number of children attending school in the other districts 
is upwards of a quarter of a million, the whole number learning the 
Crerman language is only 3,644. 



276 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

penditure for primary education in the State of Penn- 
sylvania, during the year 1839, having been 128,522/. 
sterling. 

It has often been observed, however, that enthusiasts 
for education not unfrequently restrict their philanthro- 
pic efforts to common, or elementary schools ; regarding 
schools of a higher order as not entitled to the patron- 
age of the State. Happily for their country, the legis- 
lators of Pennsylvania have not evinced so illiberal and 
contracted a spirit. Rightly conceiving that a State re- 
quires for its honour and advancement, as well as for its 
general welfare, men of a higher intellectual standing than 
mere common schools are likely to produce, these truly 
liberal and enlightened men considered themselves 
bound to afford assistance from the public treasury for 
the establishment and endowment of Academies and Col- 
leges also. An act of the Pennsylvania legislature was 
accordingly passed in the year 1838, authorising an ap- 
propriation of 1000 dollars per annum to every univer- 
sity or college in the State, having an establishment of 
not fewer than four professors, and educating not fewer 
than a hundred students. And to establish a connecting 
link between these colleges and the elementary schools, 
a further appropriation was authorised, for all aca- 
demies, or high schools, in which Latin, Greek, and Ma- 
thematics should be taught ; such appropriation for each 
academy to be 300 dollars per annum, if only fifteen 
pupils were taught ; 400, if the number of pupils 
amounted to twenty-five ; and 500 dollars, if the num- 
ber should amount to forty, and the teachers be not 
fewer than two. Nay, while public provision for superior 
education in this country is confined exclusively to the 
male sex, the legislators of Pennsylvania, who deserve 
immortal honour for setting the noble example to the 
world, rightly considering that the female sex is pecu- 
liarly the bulwark of a nation's morals, and the guide of 
its youth, extended the benefits of the provision for the 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 277 

endowment of academies to Seminaries for females. 
In these seminaries, young ladies are taught reading, 
writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, rhetoric, his- 
tory, natural and moral philosophy, composition, botany, 
chemistry, astronomy, French, Latin, Greek, mathema- 
tics, drawing, painting, and music. The average cost 
of tuition in a female seminary in Pennsylvania, is about 
41. sterling per annum ; the whole cost of a young 
lady's board and education in this superior style being 
under 27/. a year. 

The impulse which this admirable law, to which there 
is nothing similar in this country, has already given to 
the cause of superior education throughout the State of 
Pennsylvania, is truly astonishing. Academies and Fe- 
male Seminaries have been established, and are now in 
vigorous operation in all parts of the country, and col- 
leges that were struggling with difficulties before have 
had their establishments increased both in strength and 
in efficiency to qualify them for the government grant. 
The amount of this impulse, and its vast importance to 
the country, may be estimated from the following account 
of the sums issued to Academies, Female Seminaries, 
and Colleges, respectively, under the law of 1838, dur- 
ing the last two years. 

In 1838, issued to Academies . 3,790 dollars. 

1839, ditto, ditto . . 21,329 ditto. 
In 1838, ditto, Female Seminaries, 700 ditto. 

J839, ditto, ditto . . 8,413 ditto. 
In 1838, ditto, Colleges . . 3,500 ditto. 

1839, ditto, ditto . . 9,250 ditto. 

The following is a list of the whole number of stu- 
dents, pupils, and scholars, at present receiving education 
in the State of Pennsylvania, in schools, or other educa- 
tional institutions, partially endowed by the State : — 

2b 



278 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

In the University of Pennsylvania, and 

the other eight Colleges of the State, 1,170 students. 
In 52 Academies .... 2,652 pupils. 
In 29 Female Seminaries . . 1,044 ditto. 

In 5,649 Primary Schools . . 254,908 ditto. 



Total .... 259,774 



The University of Pennsylvania, which is situated in 
the city of Philadelphia, is a highly respectable and 
most efficient Institution. Its revenues, arising partly 
from landed property, and partly from fees for tuition, 
amount to upwards of 10,000/. sterling per annum. It 
combines a College for general literature, philosophy, 
and science, with a Medical Department, a preparatory 
Academy, and a charity School. The establishments of 
the college and medical school consist of seven profes- 
sors each : the academy has two superior teachers and 
four assistants ; and the charity school, two male teachers 
and one female. The following is the number of pupils 
and students receiving instruction in the University and 
its subordinate schools. 

College . . . .111 students. 

Medical School . .441 ditto 

Academy . . .215 pupils. 

Charity Schools . .138 ditto 



Total . . 902 



I know of no city in the United Kingdom in which 
the number of benevolent institutions of all kinds 
is greater, in proportion to its population, than in 
the city of Philadelphia. The reader may perhaps 
ascribe this circumstance to the Quaker origin of the 
State of Pennsylvania : but it is not peculiar to Phi- 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 279 

ladelphia ; it is the general characteristic of the cities 
of America.* In the city of Charleston, containing a 
population of only 40,000, of whom one-half are of 
African origin, there are not fewer than forty-five bene- 
volent institutions ; of which the oldest — the St. An- 
drew's Society, for supporting widows and educating or- 
phans — was formed so early as the year 1729. As an 
illustration, however, of the salutary influence which 
the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty uniformly 
exerts in the development of the kindlier affections, it 
is worthy of remark, that only five of these Charleston 
institutions, or one ninth part of the whole number, had 
their origin previous to the war of American indepen- 
dence. 

Of the benevolent institutions in the United States, 
of which I had occasion to see something of the work- 
ing and management during my short residence in the 
country, I would particularly mention, for their admir- 
able results, the Orphan House in Charleston,f the 
Asylum for the Blind in Philadelphia, and the Institu- 
tion for the Deaf and Dumb in New York. In the first 
of these institutions there is a chapel, in addition to the 
other places of worship I have enumerated in Charles- 
ton, in which the city clergy, of all denominations, 
officiate in turns once every Sabbath. The Roman 
Catholic clergy were, of course, allowed to have their 
turn with the rest ; but desiring to have the Roman Ca- 

* In no country in the world do the citizens make such exertions 
for the common weal, and I am acquainted with no people which 
has established schools as numerous and as efficient, places of public 
worship better suited to the ivants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in 
better repair." — M. de Tocquevitte 's Democracy in America, p. 72. 
Second American Edition. New York, 1838. 

*f* There is a marble statue of the famous Earl of Chatham in 
front of the Orphan House in Charleston. It originally stood in a 
public square in the city ; but during a popular tumult of the Re- 
volutionary crisis, when every thing British was proscribed, it was 
thrown down from its pedestal and partially mutilated. The great 
Chatham did not deserve such treatment in America. 



280 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

tholic children separated from the others to attend a 
separate Romish service in the chapel, it was not per- 
mitted, and they declined the honour of attending the 
institution altogether. In short, whenever the Roman 
Catholic priesthood in the United States find it imprac- 
ticable to have their own youth under their own exclu- 
sive management, they generally give them up entirely 
as lost sheep who have strayed irrecoverably into the 
Protestant fold. The freedom of mind which is neces- 
sarily engendered in America by political freedom and 
the freedom of religion, is most unfavourable for the 
maintenance and preservation of that mental thraldom 
by which Popery " lives and moves and has its being ;" 
and I now perceive, although I did not do so at the 
time, that there was much meaning and truth in the 
sentiment which I once heard uttered in the colony of 
New South Wales, by an honest Roman Catholic priest, 
since deceased, who had been stationed for several years 
in the United States, viz. that " America was the worst 
place for religion (meaning the Romish religion) in the 
world." 

Of the public institutions of Philadelphia, the Girard 
College is too remarkable, in one particular at least — 
the gorgeous magnificence of its buildings — to be passed 
over in silence. Its founder, M. Girard, was a French- 
man, who had long been settled as a banker in Phila- 
delphia, where he acquired a princely fortune ; of which 
he bequeathed the greater portion, to be held in trust 
by the city of Philadelphia, for the erection and endow- 
ment of a college. M. Girard had originally been the 
master of a small coasting vessel in the West Indies, 
and being on the coast of St. Domingo, on the breaking 
out of the insurrection of the negroes in that island, 
some of the French planters, who were meditating their 
escape from the island, placed a quantity of plate and 
other valuables in M. G.'s custody, with the intention 
of taking a passage in his vessel to America. Return- 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OY INFIDELITY. 281 

ing, however, to their estates once more, they were mas- 
sacred by the negroes, and the property having thus no 
owner, fell into M. G.'s hands. It was with this pro- 
perty, whatever might have been its original amount, 
that he commenced business as a banker in Philadel- 
phia. 

The Girard College is intended for an Orphan In- 
stitution. The buildings, which are not finished, are all 
of Pennsylvania marble. They, consist of a central 
building for College-halls, and lecture-rooms, and two 
detached buildings or wings, for the accommodation of 
the orphans and professors, &c. The wings are compa- 
ratively plain buildings externally, and appeared to me 
to be scarcely in keeping with the central edifice, which 
I presume was designed on the plan of the celebrated 
Pantheon of Athens, and is a perfect model of chaste- 
ness and magnificence. Its general outline reminded 
me of the beautiful Madeleine Church in Paris, erected 
by Napoleon ; but there is no comparison of the two 
edifices in point of dimensions. Each of the magnificent 
columns that form the exterior colonnade of the edifice 
and support the rich entablature of the roof — and there 
are about thirty-six of them altogether — cost not less 
than 16,000 dollars. In short, I question whether there 
has been a more splendid building than the Girard 
College erected in any part of Europe during the pre- 
sent century. 

When the subject of the erection of the buildings of 
this Institution was under the consideration of the city 
authorities of Philadelphia, a narrow-minded member 
of the corporation proposed that no foreigner should be 
allowed to contract for their erection. A respectable 
Scotchman, settled in Philadelphia as an architect, was 
naturally somewhat annoyed at such a proposal ; but 
as my countrymen are seldom outdone, even by Jona- 
than himself, on such occasions, he managed somewhat 
adroitly to get it set aside, by inducing another member 

2 b 2 



282 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

of the corporation, who was his personal friend, to pro- 
pose as an amendment to the motion, that as M. Girard 
had himself been a foreigner, the eity should have 
nothing to do with his money. 

The corporation of Philadelphia is at present entirely 
in the hands of the political party called the Federalists 
or Whigs, who were floated into office on the spring, 
tide of the influence of the famous Bank of the United 
States. Every workman, down to the lowest labourer, 
at the College-buildings must, therefore, be an out- 
and-out supporter of Whig measures, otherwise the 
sovereigns of the people will have no further occasion 
for his services, I was amused at the complaints which 
I heard preferred in Philadelphia against the Wliig cor- 
poration" by respectable and even literary men of the 
other party, on the ground of their having kept the 
college buildings back — as it was alleged they had — to 
secure the votes of the numerous workmen in support 
of their faction, so much the longer. I had heard 
precisely the same complaints preferred about a week 
before by the Whig party at New York against the 
Democratic corporation of that city, who had also an 
extensive public undertaking — the Croton water-works 
— in progress under their management, and who natur- 
ally gave the preference to Democratic workmen. I be- 
lieve the charge was equally unfounded in both cases ; 
but the Americans having settled all their other political 
differences in an amicable maimer, have still one to 
settle, which I fear will not be of such easy adjustment, 
viz., who shall be in, and who out of office. That, I 
believe, is in reality the main question with them at 
present. 

The President of the Girard college is Dr, Bache, a 
gentleman of high standing both as a literary man and 
as a man of science, and a grandson of the celebrated 
Benjamin Franklin. He has recently returned to Phi- 
ladelphia from a tour in Europe, whither he was sent by 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 283 

the city authorities, as patrons of the college, to in- 
quire into the whole system of education in the best 
managed institutions in the old world. He has just 
published an able Report on the subject, and is now 
ready to commence operations. The college buildings 
are in a sufficient state of forwardness for this, as the 
wings are quite finished even to the cooking apparatus 
in the kitchen. But as M. Girard's Will requires the 
college buildings to be completed before any pupils are 
received into the Institution, there are no classes in 
operation as yet. This has also formed a favourite 
subject of grievance among the gentlemen of the De- 
mocratic party against the Whig corporation ; but I 
leave it with the reader to decide whether the authori- 
ties are not justified in adhering to the express injunc- 
tions of the will ? The roof of the main building is 
now in progress, and will soon be finished. It is formed 
entirely of marble slabs ; and as the prodigious weight 
of a roof of this kind, extending over so great a surface 
as the immense pile presents, required arrangements for 
its support, such as American architects had not pre- 
viously required to make, a professional gentleman was 
actually sent over to Europe to examine the roofs of 
buildings of somewhat similar construction in the Old 
World, and to form his plan accordingly. I saw the 
working model and a number of the slabs, and have no 
doubt it will answer perfectly. 

There are not fewer than ninety-five Colleges or 
Academical Institutions for general literature, philosophy, 
and science in the United States. There are nine of 
these, including the University of Pennsylvania, in the 
Key-stone State ; each of which has an establishment of 
at least four professors, and educates at least a hundred 
students — having an endowment from the State of a 
thousand dollars per annum. Small as this endowment 
is, it affords a sufficient stimulus to such institutions in 
America ; and I only wish, from the bottom of my heart, 



284 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

that all the others were equally well endowed. But 
there has hitherto been a most unreasonable prejudice 
in America against endowing, with the funds of the 
State, Educational Institutions of a higher kind than 
mere primary schools. I trust, however, that the re- 
cent and noble example of Pennsylvania will have its 
proper influence on all the other States of the Union, 
and cause this peculiarly Hunnish idea to be utterly 
exploded. Indeed, I have no doubt it will, for there is 
nothing so remarkable in America as the assimilating 
process of the country, in virtue of which, whenever a 
new principle or discovery in the science of government 
has been wrought out or successfully established in any 
one State, it becomes common property, and is sooner 
or later adopted by all the rest. 

It is also worthy of special remark, as illustrative of 
the general and salutary influence of Christianity under 
the Voluntary System in America, that although these 
colleges are, with only a very few exceptions, institu- 
tions for secular education exclusively, they are all 
under the influence and management of one or other 
of the great leading denominations of the country. 
Nay, unless one or other of these denominations makes 
itself virtually responsible to the public for the charac- 
ter and management of any particular academical insti- 
tution, no influence or wealth on the part of patrons 
and managers, no celebrity on the part of professors, no 
amount of permanent endowment, will ensure the suc- 
cess of that institution. The University of Virginia, 
founded and endowed through the influence and exer- 
tions of President Jefferson, languished and became 
almost extinct, till a Christian influence was infused 
into its management ; then it " practised and prospered." 
And it is already predicted by not a few in Philadel- 
phia, that if the Girard College is to be conducted in 
accordance with the wishes, and in conformity to the 
spirit of the directions of its infidel founder, it will ere 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 285 

long be little else than a splendid monument of folly. 
But I have no fear of such a result. The city authori- 
ties of Philadelphia, whether they be Whigs or De- 
mocrats in future, will, I am sure, be always sufficiently 
observant of all around them to discern that a college 
established and conducted on infidel principles can never 
succeed in America. 

This remarkable fact — I mean the necessity of a 
proper religious influence to secure the success of any 
academical institution in America — is strikingly illus- 
trated in the history of Harvard University in the 
State of Massachusetts, the oldest of the academical 
institutions of the United States, and, I believe, the 
best endowed. It was founded in the year 1638, and 
its buildings, which are situated in the village of Cam- 
bridge, near Boston, have an air of venerable antiquity 
which is scarcely to be seen any where else in Ame- 
rica. Its library amounts to 42,000 volumes, and the 
large Gothic Hall that has recently been erected for its 
accommodation is one of the finest rooms for a library I 
have ever seen. Having, unhappily, fallen, however, under 
Unitarian influence since the commencement of the 
present century, Harvard University has entirely lost 
its character among the orthodox denominations of the 
United States, and no efforts on the part of its managers, 
in the way of endowing professorships, &c. (and the Uni- 
tarians have exhibited instances of splendid liberality in 
this way) have availed to attract any thing like the num- 
ber of students that would otherwise have gladly availed 
themselves of its many advantages. The neighbouring 
institution of Yale College in Connecticut, although of 
more recent origin, and not nearly so well endowed, 
has double the number of students, and has therefore a 
larger revenue, and far greater celebrity. In short, 
whenever the American voluntaries find that an acade- 
mical institution has fallen under the management of 



286 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

men in whose Christianity they can have no confidence, 
they immediately " stop the supplies," and send their 
youth somewhere else. They know that as " the wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, 
but know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth, so 
is it with the Spirit of God ; " but they know also that 
that Spirit never cometh from a Unitarian university. 

Something of a similar kind has also taken place 
in regard to Columbia College, in the city of New 
York, which has latterly fallen under the exclusive 
influence and management of the Episcopal church. In 
the State of New York, that Church has always been 
distinguished for its High Church principles, and has 
recently become a mere hotbed of Puseyism. In such 
circumstances, the Presbyterian denominations, who form 
the majority of the inhabitants both of the city and 
State of New York, having lost all confidence in the 
management of the Columbia College, set to work a 
few years ago to establish another institution, and ac- 
cordingly founded the University of New York ; the Rev. 
Dr. Matthews, of the Dutch Reformed Church, being 
the principal promoter of the undertaking. They have 
already completed a splendid building of polished stone 
for the Institution, containing halls, lecture-rooms, 
library, &c, with a commodious chapel elegantly fitted 
up ; and^.1 have no doubt that, in a few years, they will 
have it sufficiently endowed. 

Of the colleges for General Literature, Philosophy, 
and Science in the United States, the one in which I 
took the greatest interest was that of Princeton, New 
Jersey ; of which those truly eminent philosophers and 
divines, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the Rev. Samuel 
Davies, and the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon had successively 
been presidents. The course of instruction, however, is 
pretty much the same in all the American colleges, and 
I shall therefore subjoin a short programme of that of 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 287 

Princeton, to afford the reader some idea of American 
college education. 

The buildings of Princeton College, New Jersey, are 
of stone, plain but substantial.* It has no endowment 
from the State, and its capital has recently been con- 
siderably reduced by the erection of additional build- 
ings to increase its efficiency. It therefore depends al- 
most entirely on the funds derived from tuition. The 
number of students is 270, of whom 230 reside in the 
college, and the rest in private lodgings, or with their 
relatives in Princeton. 

Candidates for admission to the Freshman, or lowest 
class, are examined in Caesar's Commentaries (5 books,) 
Sallust, Virgil, (Eclogues, and Six Books of the JEneid,) 
Cicero's Select Orations contained in the volume in 
Usum Delphini, Mair's Introduction to Latin Syntax, 
the Gospels in the Greek Testament, Dalzel's Collec- 
tanea Grasca Minora, or Jacob's Greek Reader, or other 
Authors equivalent in quantity, together with Latin and 
Greek Grammar, including Latin Prosody ; also, on 
English Grammar, Arithmetic, Geography, ancient and 
modern. 

In all cases, testimonials of moral character are re- 
quired ; and if the student has been a member of 
another college, he must bring with him a certificate 
from the President or Faculty, that he is free from cen- 
sure in that institution. 

The Faculty consists of the Rev. James Carnahan, 
D.D., President, 

* It may be interesting to the friends and graduates of the college, 
and to those who have subscribed to the Alumni fund, to be in- 
formed that, in addition to the new college buildings erected within 
a few years, the Literary Societies have erected for their own use two 
new halls. These are beautiful buildings of the Ionic order, sixty- 
two feet long, forty-one feet wide, and two stories high; the columns 
of the porticos are copied from those of the Temple on the Ilissus. 
A Temple in the Island of Teos is a model of the buildings in other 
respects. — Princeton College Catalogue. 



1288 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

Rev. John Maclean, A.M., Vice President, and Pro- 
fessor of the Greek Language and Literature. 

Rev. Albert B. Dod, A.M., Professor of Mathema- 
tics, 

Joseph Henry, A.M., Professor of Natural Phi- 
losophy. 

Rev. James W. Alexander, A.M., Professor of Belles 
Lettres and Latin. 

John Torrey, M.D., Professor of Chemistry. 

Benedict Jaeger, A.M., Professor of Modern Lan- 
guages and Lecturer on Natural History. 

Stephen Alexander, A.M., Adjunct Professor of 
Mathematics, and Lecturer on Astronomy. 

Evert M. Topping, A.M., Adjunct Professor of the 
Greek and Latin Languages. 

William S. Cooley, A.M., Tutor. 

Joseph Owen, A.M., Tutor. 

James C. Moffat, A.M., Tutor. 

Charles K. Imbrie, A.M., Tutor. 

The whole course of instruction requires four years ; 
namely, one year in each of the four classes into which 
the students are divided. 

The Freshman and Sophomore classes are instructed 
by the professors of ancient and modern languages, and 
of mathematics, aided by the tutors. The junior and 
senior classes by the president and professors. 

The studies of the several classes are as follows : 



FRESHMAN CLASS. 

Winter Session. Summer Session. 

Livy, Horace (Odes,) 

Xenophon's Anabasis, iEschines de Corona, 

Roman Antiquities, Latin and Greek Exercises, 

Latin and Greek Exercises, Algebra completed. 
Algebra (Davies' Bourdon.) 



not open to the charge of infidelity. 289 

Sophomore Class. 
Winter Session. Summer Session. 

Horace (Satires and Epistles,) Cicero de Officiis, de 
Demosthenes de Corona, Amicitia, et de Senec- 

Latin and Greek Exercises, tute, 
Geometry (Play fair's Euclid,) Homer's Iliad, 
Plane Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical Tri- 

Elements of History. gonometry, with their 

applications (Young's) 
Mensuration, 
Surveying, 
Navigation, 
Nautical Astronomy, 
History. 

Junior Class. 
Winter Session, Summer Session. 

Analytical Geometry, Integral Calculus( Young's) 

(Young's) including Conic Mechanics (Renwick's 
Sections, additions,) 

Descriptive Geometry, Cicero de Oratore, 

DifferentialCalculus(Young's) Sophocles, 

Cicero de Oratore, Natural Theology, 

Euripides, (Paley's,) 

Philosophy of Mind, Civil Architecture. 

Evidences of Christianity. 

Senior Class. 

Winter Session. Summer Session. 

Belles Lettres, Moral Philosophy, 

Logic, Natural Philosophy, 

Moral Philosophy, Astronomy, 

Political Economy, Chemistry, 

Natural Philosophy, Constitution of the United 

Latin Rhetorical Works, States, 

Greek Tragedy. General Review of 

Studies. 

2 c 



290 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

Instruction in the French, Spanish, German, and 
Italian languages is given at the option of the Student, 
without extra charge. 

All the classes have Bible recitations on the Sabbath, 
during which day they are also required to prepare a 
portion of the Greek Testament, to be recited on 
Monday morning. 

All the students are required frequently to produce 
original essays. Those of the three lower classes pro- 
nounce orations in alphabetical order in the presence of 
their respective classes. The members of the Senior 
class deliver orations of their own composition as often 
as the Faculty may direct. 

In addition to the recitations of the several classes 
the following courses of lectures are delivered on the 
principal branches of science and literature, namely, a 
course on 



Moral Philosophy 



Rhetoric and English Literature 



Astronomy 

Chemistry . 

Mineralogy 

Botany 

Zoology 

Geology 

Mechanical Philosophy 

Physics 

Architecture 

Political Economy 

Greek Literature 



By the President. 
By Prof. J. W. 

Alexander. 
By Prof. S. Alex- 
ander. 
By Prof. Torrey. 

ditto. 
By Prof. Jaeger. 

ditto. 
By Prof. Henry. 

ditto 

ditto 
By Prof. Dod. 

ditto 
By Prof. Maclean. 



Four public examinations take place during the col- 
lege year; one in the middle, and one at the close of 
each session. Reports respecting the behaviour, dili- 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 291 

gence, and scholarship of the students are sent to the 
parents or guardians after each examination. 

English Grammar, Arithmetic and Geography, being 
required for admission, are not included in the college 
course of instruction ; but in order to secure attention 
to these studies, indispensably necessary in every situa- 
tion in life, the classes are examined on them four times 
a year, and deficiencies, if any exist, are reported to 
parents and guardians. 

The College Library contains eight thousand volumes, 
and is opened twice every week for the accommodation 
of the students. 

In the Libraries belonging to the two Literary 
Societies there are about four thousand volumes. The 
total number, therefore, of volumes in the three libraries 
is about twelve thousand. 

The College possesses a valuable set of Philosophical, 
Astronomical, and Chemical apparatus ; a well-selected 
Mineralogical cabinet ; a Museum of Natural History, 
and a large collection of Drawings for the illustration 
of the lectures on Architecture and Astronomy. 

The Philosophical Apparatus has lately been en- 
larged by an importation of instruments from Europe. 
The Mineralogical Cabinet was originally established 
by the late Dr. Hosack of New York, and has recently 
received an important addition from the liberality of 
the Hon. Samuel Fowler of New Jersey. 

The Museum was founded by the late Elias Boudinot, 
LL.D. of New Jersey, and has lately been extended 
by the exertions of Dr. Torrey and Professor Jaeger. 
The former has presented a thousand specimens of 
plants from the vicinity of Princeton, and the latter has 
made an extensive Entomological collection. 

The stated expenses of the College each session, 
paid in advance, exclusive of books, clothes, lights, room- 
furniture, and travelling expenses, are as follows, viz. 



292 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 



Winter Sessio?i. 




Summer Se 


'ssiofi. 


Dollars. 




Dollars. 


Board, 22 weeks 55 


00 


Board, 19 weeks 


47 50 


Tuition 20 


00 


Tuition 


20 00 


Room Rent 6 


00 


Room Rent 


6 00 


Fuel 13 


00 


Fuel 


50 


Library 1 


00 


Library 


1 00 


Servants' Wages 4 


00 


Servants' Wages 


4 00 


Washing 7 


00 


Washing 


7 00 


Incidental Expen. 2 


50 


Incidental Expen 


. 2 50 



108 50 



88 50 



The following is the distribution of the students for 
the years 1838 and 1839 

Resident Graduates 



Seniors 
Juniors 
Sophomores 
Freshmen 



7 
75 
90 
74 
24 



Total 270 



I have selected the preceding particulars of the four 
years' course of academical education at Princeton Col- 
lege, New Jersey, from the Catalogue of the Officers 
and Students of that Institution for the year 1839. The 
reader, who is at all acquainted with the Scotch Univer- 
sities, will at once perceive that the course at Princeton, 
which all candidates for the ministry in the American 
Presbyterian Church must pass through before entering 
a Divinity College, is at least as comprehensive as that 
of any university in Scotland. The system of super- 
intendance is certainly much more efficient in the 
American college, and the course, instead of five or 
six months, as in Scotland, occupies more than nine 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 293 

months of every year. The professors at Princeton 
are all members, and some of them ordained ministers, 
of the Presbyterian Church. In the department of 
Natural Philosophy, Professor Henry has obtained a 
European fame. 

The Americans disapprove of having more than from 
two to three hundred students in any one college, whether 
for general literature or for divinity. They conceive that 
the professors cannot have such an intimate personal 
knowledge of the students as is desirable for their general 
welfare when the number is greater ; that they cannot 
do justice to a greater number, and that larger associa- 
tions of young men are peculiarly dangerous to the 
morals of all. These disadvantages they consider but 
ill compensated by any diminution of the mere expense 
of education which a larger institution might render 
practicable. I believe they are perfectly in the right. 

One remarkable feature in the whole system of Ame- 
rican education is the attention which it devotes to ora- 
tory. It is the grand object of the republican college 
to make the student a public speaker — to furnish him 
with valuable matter in the first instance, and then to 
enable him to bring it out with effect. With this view, 
recitations, and other oratorical exhibitions, form a regular 
and systematic part of the course of academical instruc- 
tion. This is doubtless as it should be, in a country where 
the whole nation is one vast mass of impressible matter, 
and where the prizes of oratory are so splendid. The Ame- 
rican student is taught from the first, whether he is edu- 
cated for the Christian ministry or not, that he has great 
and important objects to gain through the right exercise 
of the gift of public speaking ; and he therefore accus- 
toms himself right early to the use of the weapon, like 
the man who is learning the noble art of defence, be- 
cause he knows he will soon have to fight for his life. 
It is remarkable, accordingly, with what fluency and 
propriety Americans of all classes address public meet- 

2 c 2 



294 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

ings with very slight preparation. I have always thought 
that the opposite defect — inattention to the art of pub- 
lic speaking — was one of the grand sins of omission in 
the modern Scotch system of education, especially 
in the case of candidates for the ministry. I have 
myself known young men who, during their whole course 
of eight years' attendance at a Scotch college, with a 
view to the Christian ministry, never thought of exercis- 
ing themselves in this art at all — as if oratory was an 
innate accomplishment ! 

During my stay at Princeton, I visited the burying- 
ground of the Presbyterian Church, to muse for a mo- 
ment over the grave of Jonathan Edwards. The former 
presidents of the college are all interred alongside of 
each other in the order of their incumbency ; each grave 
being covered with a flat tombstone, bearing a suitable 
inscription. The first is that of Aaron Burr, the father 
of the notorious Colonel Burr, vice-president of the 
United States. Then follows that of the great philoso- 
pher and divine* — then Samuel Davies — then Dr. John 

* The following is a copy of the Latin inscription on the tomb- 
stone of Jonathan Edwards : — 

M. S. 
reverendi admoduru viri, 
JONATHAN EDWARDS, A.M., 

Collegii Novae-Caesareae praesidis, 

natus apud Windsor, Connecticutensium, 

v. Octobris, A.D. MDCCIII., S. V., Patre reverendo 

Timotheo Edwards oriundus, 

collegio Yalensi educatus, 

apud Northampton, sacris initiatus, 

xv. Februarii. MDCCXXVI. 

Illinc dimissus, xxii. Junii MDCCL. 

et munus barbaros instituendi accepit, 

Praeses Aulae Nassoviae creatus xvi. Februarii, MDCCL VIII. 

Defunctus in hoc vico, xxii. Martii sequentis, S. N. aetatis lv. 

heu, nimis brevis! 

Hie jacet mortalis pars. 

Qualis persona quaeris viator? 

Vir coipore proeero, sed gracili, 



NOT OPi£N TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 295 

Witherspoon — then Dr. Robert Findley. It is a pecu- 
liarly interesting spot, from the hallowed associations 
which it calls up. I was sorry to observe, however, 
that the state of the burying-ground is not so creditable 
to all concerned as it ought to be. I cannot say I ap- 
prove highly of the modern practice of transforming 
church-yards into pleasure-gardens, like the cemetery at 
Auburn, near Boston, and the one recently formed at 
Baltimore ; but it is surely still less accordant with pro- 
priety to allow them to be neglected. 

The following is a list of the denominations to which 
the ninety-five American colleges virtually belong, with 
the number under the influence or management of each 
denomination ■ — 

Presbyterians . . . . 57 

Congregational Presbyterians . 8 

Roman Catholics . . . 10 

Methodists .... 8 

Baptists ..... 7 

studiis intentissimis, abstinentia, et sedulitate attenuato. 

Ingenii acumine, judicio acri, et prudentia, 

secundus nemini mortalium. 

Artium liberalium et scientiarum peritia insignis, 

criticorum sacrorum optiinus, 

theologus eximius, 

Ut vix alter aequalis, disputator candidus ; 

fidei christianae propugnator validus et invictus; 

concionator gravis, serius, discriminans ; 

et Deo favente, successu felicissimus. 

Pietate praeclarus, moribus suis severus, ast aliis aequus et 

benignus, 

vixit dilectus, veneratus — sed ah ! 

lugendus moriebatur. 

Quantos gemitns discedens ciebat ! 

Heu sapientia tanta 

Heu doctrina et religio ! 

Amissurn plorat collegium, 

plorat et ecclesia ; 

at, eo recepto, gaudet coelum. 

Abi, Viator, et pia sequere vestigia. 



296 TBE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

Episcopalians .... 4 

Unitarians .... 1 

After the preceding review, two things must be suffi- 
ciently evident to the reader, in regard to education in 
the United States — first, that the Americans are making 
prodigious and unparalleled efforts in the cause of edu- 
cation ; and, secondly, that education in America par- 
takes much more of a religious character and influence 
than it does in our own country. The result of this 
state of things is a general diffusion of intelligence 
throughout the American community, and a general de- 
mand for it quite unprecedented in England. And this 
demand is not confined to mere newspapers, of which, 
indeed, the number published in the United States far 
exceeds any thing of the kind in the mother country ; 
it extends to works of general literature, and especially 
to religious publications. Every work of celebrity in 
England is immediately re-published in America, in a 
surprisingly cheap form, and circulated extensively all 
over the Union, but especially in the Northern and Mid- 
dle States. The valuable series of historical and other 
works published in England under the title of the Family 
Library, was lately republished, with additions and im- 
provements, by an American publisher, to the extent of 
a hundred volumes. Of this extensive publication, not 
fewer than 6000 copies, or 600,000 volumes, have been 
sold. A large number of these copies was purchased 
on account of the State of New York ; the legislature 
of which having made an appropriation of 55,000 dol- 
lars annually, for five years, for the purchase of books to 
form district libraries throughout the State, presented a 
copy of this extensive publication to each school-district 
library. In regard to the sale of other works, both of 
general literature and practical divinity, — DTsraeli's Cu- 
riosities of Literature, Madame de Stael's works, and 
those of Drs. M'Nish and Combe, have all had a re- 
markably extensive sale in the United States, Of Fos- 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 297 

ter's Essays, an edition of 5000 copies was sold in one 
summer. Home's Introduction has also had an extensive 
sale. Of John Newton's works, in six volumes octavo, 
an edition of 2000 copies was sold in one year, although 
another edition, published by another bookseller, was 
selling at the same time. Of John Howe's works, 4000 
copies have already been sold. Of Miss Sinclair's two 
works, entitled " Modern Accomplishments" and " Views 
of Society," 1500 copies of each have been sold. Scott's 
excellent Commentary has had a much more extensive 
sale in America than in England ; and of Hannah More's 
Private Devotion 40,000 copies have been sold in the 
United States. Of Jay's Evening and Morning Exer- 
cises, 5000 copies were sold the first year. Of Dr. 
Symington of Glasgow's work on the Atonement, 2200 
copies have already been sold, although the author was 
previously unknown in America. Dr. Dick of Dundee's 
former works were so extensively sold in the United 
States, that when his last work, entitled " The Sidereal 
Heavens," was announced, an American publisher paid 
SOL for the exclusive privilege of having the sheets 
sent out to him as they came from the press, that he 
might have the start of the other American publishers ; 
although the work sells for not more than half a dollar. 
Of Barnes'* Notes on the Gospels, a work of two 
volumes of about 400 pages each, the 16th edition of 
2000 copies each is now selling. Of Fisher's Explana- 
tion of the Assembly's Catechism, the fourth edition of 
3000 copies each is now on sale ; and of a work of 240 
pages, called a Key to the Catechism, nearly 20,000 
copies have been sold. I have already alluded to what 
was styled " The Volume Enterprise of the American 
Tract Society." That society published, during the past 



* A distinguished American Presbyterian minister in Philadel- 
phia, of whom I shall have occasion to speak more particularly in 
the next chapter. 



298 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

year, a series of fifteen volumes of practical divinity, 
comprising works of Baxter, Bunyan, and various 
other divines of that school. The volumes were neatly 
bound in cloth, of a small duodecimo size, containing 
each from 300 to 400 pages of letter-press, and costing 
singly half a dollar. Now, of these volumes there were 
sold in various parts of the United States, during the 
past year — some in whole sets, and others in single vo- 
lumes — not fewer than 300,000 volumes ; and the very 
manner in which they were sold, viz., by men of known 
piety, who took the trouble not only to distribute them 
at cost price, but to exhort the purchasers to make a 
right use of them, ensured their perusal. 

Recollecting, therefore, that the state of things I have 
described in reference to education in the States of New 
York and Pennsylvania, the two principal States of the 
Union, is at least equalled by that of the whole of New 
England ; and recollecting also that the other States that 
are still behind in their public provision for education, are 
fast following the noble example of the Empire and Key- 
stone States, — it must be evident to the reader that the 
lugubrious wailings of Captain Marryat and others on 
the progress of the democratic principle in America, and 
the probable consequences of universal suffrage in that 
country, are not less hypocritical on the one hand than 
they are uncalled for on the other. That it would be 
dangerous to try the American experiment in this coun- 
try I grant. I willingly admit that it would indeed be 
dangerous to the stability of the throne and the liber- 
ties of the people of Great Britain to establish universal 
suffrage in the United Kingdom ; in which, — through 
the long mismanagement of a government and an 
Established Church that have never had a conscience 
between them, — a large proportion of the entire popu- 
lation, as in England, and a still larger, as in Ireland, 
have been left to all appearance almost destitute of that 
faculty which Dr. Watts tells us " distinguishes man 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 299 

from his fellow- creatures the brutes."* But is it either 
just or candid to compare with so degraded a popula- 
tion the sovereign people of the State of New York — » 
where 48 out of every 49 who are fit for school are 
actually at it ; where a wise and paternal government 
are employing every available means of informing the 
understanding and improving the hearts of the people ; 
and where religion allures the youth of the country to 
the house of God, not with the paint of State patronage 
on her mercenary cheek, and the meretricious trappings 
of secular adornment thrown around her haggard form 
to conceal her chains, but with a warm and beating 
heart and a countenance beaming with all the charities 
of heaven ? For my own part, I confess I entertain 
no fears whatever from universal suffrage in America ; 
provided it is always to be accompanied, as I presume 
it will, with these two things, — universal education and 
entire freedom of religion. The history of mankind 
affords innumerable instances of kings and nobles who 
have both betrayed and enslaved their country. But I 
challenge Captain Marryat to point out a single instance 
in the history of man in which a well-educated and 
Christian people ever did either the one or the other. 
In short, I entirely agree with the Americans in think- 
ing that a man's liberty, like his property, is safest in 
his own hands ; and I am very much disposed to agree 
with them also in thinking that it is not safe at all any 
where else. 

The general pitch of the intellect of a nation may 
be guessed at with tolerable accuracy from their poli- 
tical songs ; for as these effusions are intended to influ- 
ence the great body of the people — at least, wherever 
they possess political influence or power — they are 
necessarily adapted to the taste and intellect of those 
to whom they are addressed. On stepping into the 

* Watts's Logic, chap. i. 



300 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

steam-boat one morning at New York, on my way to 
Philadelphia, I purchased one of the daily papers 
from a boy who was hawking them about among the 
passengers at a penny each ; and on glancing over it I 
was struck with the two following party-songs of the 
day, which I subjoin as a specimen of the intellectual 
standing of the American people, and which the reader 
will of course compare with the party-rhymes that 
occasionally appear in the columns of the Times and the 
Chronicle. I am not answerable, however, for the sen- 
timents they contain, as it is solely for their intellectual 
character as poetical effusions that I refer to them at 
all. 

To render them intelligible, however, to the English 
reader, I must inform him that there is a great excite- 
ment at present throughout the United States on the 
subject of the election of a President, which takes 
place early next year ; Mr. Van Buren's term of four 
years expiring on the 4th of March next. The Fe- 
deralists, or Whigs, as they are called, who comprise the 
mercantile interest generally, desire to elect as Presi- 
dent, General Harrison, of Ohio, the son of a revolu- 
tionary soldier, and a man of eminence both as a states- 
man and a military leader. I have seen a paper which 
General Harrison addressed, when American Charge 
d' Affaires at Bogota, to General Bolivar, on the policy 
which it would be prudent for that great man to recom- 
mend, or rather to adopt, in the organization of the new 
Spanish republics. It was evidently the production of 
a man of superior intellect, and the sentiments it ex- 
pressed were not less worthy of a Christian than of a 
Roman. Tippecanoe was the scene of a battle which 
he fought with the Indians of the west, towards the 
close of last century, at a time when they had organ- 
ized an extensive confederacy to massacre all the 
white inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi, and 
fell upon the American outposts without warning. The 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 301 

Democrats, or supporters of the existing administra- 
tion, who consist chiefly of the agricultural portion of 
the community, desire, of course, to re-elect Mr. Van 
Buren, who is eligible, by the constitution, for another 
term of four years. Both parties, however, in so far as 
I could ascertain, are equally attached to the constitu- 
tion and to all the main principles of their republican 
government. They differ only in matters of detail ; 
the principal question that divides them being whether 
they should have a great National Bank or not, — the 
Whigs approving of such an institution from the facili- 
ties it affords to commercial transactions, and the Demo- 
crats decrying it, from its having been abused, as they 
allege it has, in times past, as a source of dangerous 
political influence, and employed to encourage ruinous spe- 
culation. I confess there is much to be said on both sides 
of the question ; but as I took no interest in the subject, 
I would not venture to offer any opinion on its merits. 

THE SOLDIER OF TIPPECANOE. 

{An American Whig Song.) 

The stars are bright, and our steps are light, 

As we sweep to our camping ground, 
And well we know, as we forward go, 

That the foe fills the green wood round ; 
But we know no fear, though the foe he near, 

As we tramp the green wood through, 
For oh ! have we not for a leader got 

The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? 

Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got 
The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? 

Now the deep green grass is our soft mattrass 

Till the heating of reveille'e ; 
No light's in our camp hut the fire-fly lamp, 

No roof but the green wood tree. 
Brief slumber we snatch till the morning watch ; 

But one eye no slumber knew ! 
One mind was awake for his soldiers' sake, 
'Twas the Soldier of Tippecanoe. 

Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got 
The Soldier of Tippecanoe? 
2 D 



302 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

The faint dawn is breaking, our bugles are speaking, 

Quick rouses our lengthened line ; 
Sweet dreams are departing, the soldier is starting, 

And welcomes the morning shine. 
But hark ! 'tis the drum ! the foe is come, 

Their yells ring the dark wood through : 
But see ! mounted, ready, brave, cautious, and steady, 

The Soldier of Tippecanoe. 

Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got 
The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? 

Now nigher and nigher, though hot is their fire, 

And ceaseless the volleying sound, 
We press down the hollow, and dauntlessly follow, 

Then tramp up the rising ground. 
With death-stealing ardour we press them yet harder, 

And still as they come into view, 
" Now, steady, boys steady ; be quick and be ready ! " 

Cries the Soldier of Tippecanoe. 

Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got 
The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? 

Down, down drop the foe, and still on we go, 

And each thicket and dingle explore ; 
Loud our shrill bugles sing till the wild woods ring 

And their rifles are heard no more. 
Now weave the green crown of undying renown, 

For the Patriot and Hero's brow, 
And write his name with the halo of Fame, 

The Soldier of Tippecanoe. 

Chorus — For oh ! have we not for a leader got 
The Soldier of Tippecanoe ? 



THE DEMOCRATIC RALLY. 

(An American Democratic Song.) 

Awake to the sound: 'tis the soul thrilling cry 

That Freedom breathes forth from her high mountain dwelling ; 
It sweeps the green earth — it ascends the calm sky, 
On the mild chainless breezes triumphantly swelling ! 
The voice of the past, 
It is blent with the blast — 
While the forms of our sires on the bright clouds are cast : 
Then Democrats rally — the battle is near; 
And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 303 

Give the name of the villain to Time's ceaseless stream, 

Who led the base van of corrupt legislation : 
May Beauty ne'er bless him, nor virtue's pure dream, 
Foul canker and stain on the brow of our nation ! 
The Traitor, the Knave, 
The Trimmer, the Slave — 
The Apostate to all that survives the grim grave ! 
Then Democrats rally — the battle is near — 
And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. 

Oh ! gaze on those walls where our fathers repined, 

When Hope droop'd her wings through the long gloomy morrow. 
No shackles their proud spirits ever could bind, 

Alone for their country they sighed out their sorrow. 
Then think of the past — 
Nail our flag to the mast, 
Let our note of defiance ring loud on the blast ! 
And like them let us rally — the battle is near — 
And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. 

Go forth to those fields where our brave fathers stood 

Beneath our starred flag in the dawn of its glory, 
Where free as the fountain they pour'd out their blood, 
Where Liberty smiled as she blazoned their story. 
The same flag is ours — 
It waves o'er the bowers 
Where fame bound their brows with eternity's flowers. 
Then Democrats rally — the battle is near — 
And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. 

A firm band of brothers all solemnly sworn 

To march to the fight in the grey of the morning ; 
The recreant Whigs and their gag-law we scorn — 
Let traitors and tyrants be wise at our warning ! 
Our franchise, our cause — 
Full rights and just laws — 
We'll die for them all, or we ask no applause ! 
Then Democrats rally — the battle is near ; 
And shame on the dastard who shrinks back in fear. 

Now, I presume the reader will agree with me in 
thinking that the men who require such compositions as 
these to induce them to vote either way on a political 
question of importance to their country, are men of a 
somewhat different standing in society, both as to in- 



304 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES 

tellect and to worldly circumstances, from the great 
majority of the Socialists and Chartists and wild Irish of 
our own happy land. Instead, therefore, of the vain 
and insensate attempt to arrest the progress of demo- 
cratic principles and institutions in America, through the 
influence of bribery and corruption^ as Captain Marryat, 
— the moralist, forsooth — recommends, it would be wiser 
to take into timely consideration what this American 
people will do to our own people in the latter days. 
" The Christian nations of our age," says M. de Tocque- 
ville, " seem to me to present a most alarming spectacle ; 
the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong 
that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that 
it cannot be guided : their fate is in their hands ; yet a 
little while, and it may be so no longer." 

" The first duty which is at this time imposed upon 
those who direct our affairs, is to educate the democracy ; 
to warm its faith, if that be possible ; to purify its 
morals ; to direct its energies ; to substitute a knowledge 
of business for its inexperience, and an acquaintance with 
its true interests for its blind propensities ; to adapt its 
government to time and place, and to modify it in com- 
pliance with the occurrences and the actors of the age."* 

The American people already amount to seventeen 
millions and a half ; and agreeably to the uniform rate 
of increase in the United States during the last fifty 
years, as exhibited in an able statistical document drawn 
up by — Verplanck, Esq., and read lately before the Al- 
bany Institute, in the State of New York, viz. one- 
third every ten years, and double every twenty-four ; 
they will amount in the year 1864 to thirty-five mil- 
lions, and will thus in twenty-four years hence outnum- 
ber the entire population of Great Britain and Ireland. 
And in the year 1888, before this generation shall have 
passed away — should the present constitution of things 
subsist so long in the world — they will amount to seventy 

* Democracy in America, Introduction, page 16. 



NOT OPEN TO THE CHARGE OF INFIDELITY. 305 

millions, and outnumber the entire population of Great 
Britain and France together. And what though the 
Union should be dissolved in the meantime ; what though 
the North should be separated from the South in the 
United States, or the East from the West? In that 
case there will only be two or three great republics 
for one ; there will be no change in the form of govern- 
ment, no change in its institutions. 

" What is understood by republican government in 
the United States, is the slow and quiet action of society 
upon itself. It is a regular state of things really 
founded upon the enlightened will of the people. It 
is a conciliatory government, under which resolutions 
are allowed time to ripen ; and in which they are 
deliberately discussed, and executed with mature 
judgment. The republicans in the United States set a 
high value upon morality, respect religious belief, and 
acknowledge the existence of rights. They profess to 
think that a people ought to be moral, religious, and 
temperate, in proportion as they are free. What is 
called the republic in the United States, is the tranquil 
rule of the majority, which after having had time to 
examine itself, and to give proof of its existence, is the 
common source of all the powers of the State. But 
the power of the majority is not of itself unlimited. 
In the moral world, humanity, justice, and reason enjoy 
a.n undisputed supremacy ; in the political world, vested 
rights are treated with no less deference. The majority 
recognise these two barriers ; and if it now and then 
overstep them, it is because, like individuals, it has 
passions, and, like them, it is prone to do what is wrong, 
whilst it discerns what is right.''* 

Whatever, therefore, be the issue, in regard to the 
permanence of the present United States' Government, 
or its dissolution, and the consequent formation of other 
republics from its integral parts, it is at least certain that 

* Democracy in America, page 396. 
2 d2 



.306 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES, &C. 

the distance of America from Europe has now virtually- 
been diminished one-half through the agency of steam, 
and that the intercourse between the two worlds, and 
the interchange of thought and sentiment between their 
respective inhabitants, will henceforth, through that 
agency alone, be incomparably greater and more fre- 
quent than in times past. In fact, America is only now 
beginning to exert an influence upon the European 
mind. What, then, will be the issue and result of that 
influence during the next half century ? Why, I have 
no doubt whatever, that long before the termination of 
that period, the full tide of democratic influence that is 
already setting in with a yearly increasing force and 
volume from the great Western world upon our shores, 
will sweep away in succession the law of primogeniture 
in Great Britain, and the law of entails, hereditary legis- 
lation, and the Established Church. The British throne 
may still subsist, however, and stand as firmly as ever, 
when all these, its fancied bulwarks and the sureties for 
its stability, are gone. There will still be a place for 
it in the hearts of this great nation ; and it will not be 
the fault of the people, but of their rulers, if it should 
be otherwise. It well befits those, however, whom it 
principally concerns, to prepare themselves beforehand 
for the coming struggle ; when the men, whom we drove 
out from amongst us with the strong arm of persecution 
in the seventeenth century, will, in strict accordance with 
the principles of the retributive justice of Him, "who 
visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children 
unto the third and fourth generation," come back upon 
us with the moral and resistless influence of their edu- 
cated millions, to " overturn, overturn, overturn," in 
our land. The only way to mitigate the violence of 
this struggle is to do justly in the meantime, to love 
mercy > and to walk humbly with God. 



CHAPTER VI I. 



SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL RELIGIOUS DENOMI- 
NATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Those bodies of professing Christians in the United 
States who, although differing from each other in name 
and in certain minor peculiarities, are nevertheless 
almost entirely agreed in the great points of doctrine, 
discipline, and worship, and may be comprehended 
under the general term, Presbyterians, are by far the 
most numerous and beyond all comparison the most 
influential of all the religious denominations in North 
America. The Methodists and Baptists are certainly 
more numerous than the Presbyterians proper, I mean, 
those who belong to the two General Assemblies of the 
American Presbyterian Church ; but they are far out- 
numbered by the united bodies who, although ranked 
under separate and independent organizations, still 
hold with the Presbyterians in all the great points of 
doctrine, discipline, and worship, and yearly acknow- 
ledge this common ground of brotherhood by sending 
delegates or corresponding members to their synods or 
assemblies. 

" Every religion," says M. de Tocqueville, " is to be 
found in juxta-position to a political opinion which is 
connected with it by affinity. The greatest part of 
British America was peopled by men who, after having 
shaken off the authority of the pope, acknowledged no 



308 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

other religious supremacy : they brought with them 
into the new world a form of Christianity which I 
cannot better describe than by styling it a democratic 
and republican religion. This sect contributed power- 
fully to the establishment of a democracy and a 
republic ; and from the earliest settlement of the 
emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance 
which has never been dissolved."* 

Agreeably to this philosophical and just idea, I 
observe that of the three forms of church government 
under which all the Protestant denominations of Chris- 
tendom may respectively be ranked, the political 
opinion, to which the system of Episcopacy stands in 
juxta-position, and with which it is connected by 
affinity, is monarchy ; the system of Diocesan Episco- 
pacy having a strong elective attraction for unlimited 
monarchy, or " the right divine of kings to govern 
wrong." Presbyterianism, on the other hand, unques- 
tionably stands in juxta-position to Republicanism,^ 

* Democracy in America, 2nd Amer. Edit. New York, 1838, 
page 282. 

•f* It is amusing to hear the Americans talking on these subjects: 
" The constitution of the Presbyterian Church," observes the late 
Dr. Rice, of Virginia, " is fundamentally and decidedly republican, 
and it is in a very happy measure adapted to that particular modifi- 
cation of republican institutions which prevails in the United 
States. This is too plain to require demonstration ; the slightest 
attention being sufficient to convince any one that our ecclesiastical 
constitution establishes in the church a representative government. 
Hence the more decidedly a man is a Presbyterian, the more 
decidedly is he a Republican. So much is this the case, that some 
Christians of this society, fully believing that Presbytery is de jure 
divino, consider this as decisive evidence that Republicanism is of 
divine institution; and are persuaded that they should grievously 
sin against God by acknowledging any other form of civil govern- 
ment. This is mentioned for the sake of showing what influence 
the sentiments which men hold in relation to the church have on 
their political opinions. By the way, a most interesting volume 
might be written by a man of talents and learning on the political 
influence which various religious systems have had in the world." — 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 309 

and Independency to Democracy. The loyalty of any 
Christian man, however, especially under a free govern- 
ment, and his attachment to the peculiar constitution 
under which he lives, will not be affected in the 
slightest degree by the circumstance of his belonging 
to any one of these Christian denominations rather 
than another: the American Episcopalians are as 
thorough Republicans as any other Christian denomi- 
nation in the Union ; and the Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents of the United Kingdom will not yield to any 
other denomination in Great Britain, as staunch sup- 
porters of the British throne. 

As it was the influx of Presbyterians into the Middle 



Illustrations of the Character and Conduct of tlie Presbyterian 
Church in Virginia. By John Holt Rice, D.D., Minister of the 
First Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Virginia. Richmond, 1816. 

As every one has his own theory in these matters, my theory for 
many years before I visited America was that, as the system of 
Republicanism had a strong tendency to nurture the pride of the 
human heart, it was not the political system, so to speak, of Chris- 
tianity, which goes directly to humble the pride of man. On seeing 
Republicanism and Christianity in actual alliance, however, in 
America, I was constrained to modify this theory very much. For 
I confess I did not find such exemplifications of the principle I 
have mentioned as I anticipated : and the reason is obvious ; for 
where all men are placed on the same footing as to political 
privileges, there is nothing of that kind that any man can indi- 
vidually be proud of. It is in England, where the republican hopes 
to bring down lords and dukes to his own level, that pride finds 
something to feed on in that system. At all events, the simplicity 
of manners which results from the alliance in question is a most 
remarkable feature in American society. If Mr, Jacob Astor, for 
instance, the wealthiest citizen of the United States, who lives not- 
withstanding in a plain though genteel house in Broadway, in New 
York, were setting up a coach and four, and dressing out his servants 
in the harlequin attire in which the English nobility and gentry 
dress out their lacqueys, — I suppose to show the world that they are 
an inferior breed of human beings. — -he would excite no indignation 
in the respectable portion of the community ; he would simply be 
laughed out of society as a man who had lost his senses and was fit 
for Bedlam. 



310 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

States of the American Republic during the latter half 
of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth, 
century, that gave their peculiar tone and character to 
these States, and in great measure to the whole Union, 
it is worthy of remark, in connexion with this historical 
fact, and as a further illustration of the correctness of 
M. de Tocqueville's principle, that the spirit of the 
Presbyterian system has evidently gone hand in hand 
with the genius of the Republic in exerting a plastic 
influence on the other forms of Christianity in the 
country, and in modelling their institutions into some- 
thing like conformity to those of the Presbyterian 
Church. I have already pointed out the remarkable 
coincidence between the New England Congregational 
and the Presbyterian systems in giving to the aggrieved 
minority of any particular church the right of appeal to 
the church generally, which the system of English In- 
dependency uniformly denies, — thereby acknowledging, 
in one most important particular, the union and com- 
munion of saints. Indeed, the unity of action which 
has hitherto characterised the New England churches; 
their strength and vigour, evinced in such cases as 
those of the Rev. Mr. Fisk and the Rev. Mr. Sherman ; 
and the high character, as to ministerial qualifications, 
which their clergy have uniformly maintained— are to be 
ascribed in great measure to the Presbyterian elements 
of their ecclesiastical constitution. 

But this plastic influence is still more remarkably ex- 
hibited in the American Episcopal Church ; which, in 
direct opposition to the semi-popish dogmas of certain 
pseudo-reformers in our own country, has incorporated 
into its system the two great Presbyterian principles of 
popular election and lay-representation. The pastor of 
each church in this body is uniformly elected by the 
people ; and is uniformly accompanied also in his an- 
nual visit to the State or District Convention, in which 
the general affairs of the church within the State or 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 311 

district are transacted, by a lay delegate from his par- 
ticular congregation, who sits and votes with the clergy 
on behalf of that congregation, in all matters of common 
concernment to the church ; the bishop, who presides 
in the Convention, being himself elected to his office by 
the clerical and lay members of which it is composed. 
The Convention serves as a court of appeal to both 
clergy and people, either against the act of the bishop, 
or in any other case of grievance whatever ; the ag- 
grieved party having a still further appeal from the 
State Convention to the General Convention of the 
whole American Episcopal Church, which is similarly 
constituted, and meets triennially. In short, the sys- 
tem of church government in the American Episcopal 
Church is totally different in its principles from that of 
the Church of England, and coincides entirely with the 
comparatively liberal system recommended by Arch- 
bishop Usher in the reign of Charles the First. 

Nay, even the Lutheran Church in America, which 
numbers not fewer than a thousand congregations, has 
experienced the same plastic influence to which I have 
been adverting ; for, while it retains the Confession of 
Augsburg, it not only rejects Luther's peculiar doc- 
trine of consubstantiation, but has completely divested 
itself of the German apparatus of General Superintend- 
ents or Bishops, and become thoroughly Presbyterian ; 
its affairs being under the superintendence of a General 
Synod, which holds friendly communion with the other 
branches of the American Presbyterian Church. 

During my stay in the United States, I had the plea- 
sure of meeting with the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, Presi- 
dent of the Lutheran Divinity College at Gettysburgh, 
Pennsylvania, who has been labouring zealously for 
several years past to bring about a general union of 
evangelical Christians of all denominations in America. 
An American by birth, but of German parentage, Dr. S. 
speaks the English and German languages with equal 



312 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 






fluency, but greatly prefers the latter for pulpit oratory. 
He has published a work entitled a " Fraternal Appeal 
to the American Churches, with a Plan for Catholic 
Union on Apostolic Principles," which is evidently the 
production of a man of talent and learning, deeply im- 
bued with all the charities of genuine Christianity. It 
has reached a second edition, and has already excited 
considerable attention to its important subject on the 
part of Christian men of high standing, of various deno- 
minations in the United States ; a society having been 
formed in New York for the promotion of its object, of 
which the office-bearers are the leading men of all the 
great Protestant denominations in the Union. It must 
be acknowledged that in America, where there is no 
National Establishment to form an insurmountable wall 
of partition between those who are within and those 
who are without its pale, the prospect of realizing the 
consummation which Dr. Schmucker so ardently desires, 
is much more favourable than in this country. And, I 
am happy to add, that, without any relaxation of at- 
tachment to their own peculiar views of our common 
Christianity, there is a growing disposition on the part 
of the members of the different evangelical communions 
in America, to regard each other as " branches " of the 
same spiritual " vine ;" members of the same body, of 
which Christ is the living Head ; and fellow-travellers 
to the same glorious land of immortality. All that is 
necessary in the case is to cultivate such a spirit, and 
to extend its influence. It is not necessary by any 
means to " remove tha ancient landmarks" of particular 
churches. On the contrary, the grand object of Chris- 
tian union will be the more easily attained that they are 
suffered to remain. 

As the important principles of popular election and lay 
representation in the government of the church, which 
I have shown are held by the American Episcopalians, 
in common with all the Presbyterian denominations in 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 3 I 3 

the United States, have recently been held up by cer- 
tain of those pseudo-reformers, to whom I have already 
alluded, as an innovation upon the constitution and 
practice of the primitive church, it may not be out of 
place to subjoin the following quotations from an 
authority to which, I presume, these persons will bow 
with all deference, as it is that of no less distinguished 
a personage than a Confessor to the King of France. 
In his able " Discourse on the History of the First Six 
Centuries of the Church," prefixed to the eighth volume 
of his " Histoire Ecclesiastique :" Paris, 1727: M. 
Fleury, an able and learned member of the Gallican 
Romish Church, observes, in regard to the election of 
bishops in the primitive church : — 

" Le choix se faisoit par les eveques les plus voisins, 
de l'avis du clerge et du peuple de l'eglise vacante. 
C'est a dire, par tous ceux qui pouvoient mieux con- 
noitre le besoin de cette eglise. * * # Aussitot 
on sacroitle nouvel eveque, et on le mettoit en fonction : 
mais on avoit tellement egard au consentement du peuple, 
que sHl refusoit de recevoir un eveque, apres quHl 
etoit ordonne, on ne Vy contraignoit pas, et on lui 
en donnoit un autre qui lui fut agreable" 

In short, the appointment of the clergy in the pri- 
mitive church was exclusively in the hands of the 
Christian people ; for, although M. Fleury contends for 
a clerical nomination, the consent of the people, he 
allows, was a sine qua non; and their veto, without 
assigning reasons, was sufficient to set aside even an 
actual ordination to a particular church. In regard to 
the character and office of the primitive bishops, and 
the extent of their dioceses, M. Fleury observes : — 

" Entierement occupez de leurs fonctions, ils ne son- 
geoient pas comment ils etoient vetus ou logez. Ils 
ne donnoient pas meme grande application au temporel 
de leur eglise : ils en laissoient le soin a des diacres et 
des ceconomes, mais ils ne se dechargeoient sur per- 

2 E 



314 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

sonne du spirituel. Leur occupation etoit la priere, 
1' instruction, la correction, lis entroient dans tout le de- 
tail possible ; et c est par cette raison que les dioceses 
etoient si petits ; afin q'un seul homme y 'put suffire et 
connoitre par lui meme tout son troupeau. Pour faire 
tout par autrui et de loin, il n'auroit fallu q'un eveque 
dans toute l'eglise." 

In short, the bishop was required to have a particular 
knowledge of every individual member of his flock, as 
well as of his particular case and circumstances ; and the 
dioceses were sufficiently small to enable him to ac- 
complish this. In other words, the primitive bishop 
was merely the minister of a moderately sized parish, 
like those of the Presbyterian Church. Nay, M. Fleury 
adds, that in the management of the spiritual affairs, 
even of these small parishes, the ancient bishops were 
assisted, like the modern Presbyterian clergy, by lay 
elders, who were not usually allowed to preach. 

" II est vrai, qu'ils avoient des pretres, pour les soula- 
ger meme dans le spirituel, pour presider aux prieres 
et celebrer le saint sacrifice en cas d'absence ou de 
maladie de l'eveque ; pour baptiser ou donner la peni- 
tence en cas de necessite. Quelquefois meme 
l'eveque leur confioit le ministere de la parole : car re- 
gulierement il n'y avoit que l'eveque qui prechoit ; les 
pretres etoient son conseil et le senat de Veglise : elevez 
a ce rang pour leur science ecclesiastique, leur sagesse, 
leur experience. Tout se faisoit dans Veglise par 
conseil : parceqtfon ne cherchoit qu'd y faire regner la 
raison, la regie, la volonie de Dieu" * 

* Discours sur l'Histoire de Six Premiers Siecles de l'Eglise ; 
par M. Fleury. Histoire Ecclesiastique, tome 8ieme. Paris, 1727. 

Dr. Kenrick (Roman Catholic Bishop of Arath) of Philadelphia, 
in a treatise in the Latin language recently published at Philadel- 
phia, to which I shall afterwards have occasion to refer more parti- 
cularly, asserts broadly that the practice which M. Fleury shows 
to have been universal during the first six centuries, is contrary 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 315 

In short, the primitive Bishop and the Presbyters of 
his small diocese, who constituted the council or senate 
of the church for that diocese, were precisely of the 
same ecclesiastical standing as the modern Presbyterian 
minister and lay-elders constituting the Church Session 

to the universal opinion and practice of the ancient Christian 
church : — 

"Calvinus arguitur a. "Wilsone, prseconeipso sectse, quod ad opti- 
matum concilianduni gratiarn, laicos seniores regiminis fecerit 
participes, contra totius antiquitatis Christianse sensum et morem." 

" Who shall decide when (even Romish) doctors disagree ?" I 
presume, however, that the French confessor is a somewhat hetter 
authority in regard to the opinions and practice of the primitive 
church than the American coadjutor Bishop. It was not, however, 
to conciliate the chief men of Geneva, that Calvin instituted, or 
rather restored, the office of the eldership in that city. The fact is, 
that having endeavoured to purge the roll of communicants of 
unworthy persons, Calvin, like Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton, 
was driven into banishment from Geneva, by a popular tumult ; and 
it was during his absence of four years in Strasburgh, where he 
officiated during that period as Professor of Divinity, that he 
became acquainted with the ancient and apostolic institution of the 
eldership, which he found had been preserved among the persecuted 
Protestants of the Alps from the primitive times. On returning to 
Geneva, Calvin embodied this institution of the Waldenses into 
the constitution of the Presbyterian church, and thus obtained the 
support of the Christian laity, through their own representatives, 
for the enforcement of discipline. When in Strasburgh, in the 
spring of the year 1837, I attended divine service in the French 
Protestant church of St. Nicholas, in which Calvin had officiated 
during his residence in that city. The congregation consisted chiefly 
of females, among whom there was a considerable number of persons 
of the class of maid-servants from Switzerland. The discourse was 
evidently written, but delivered in a most appropriate manner from 
memory, and in style and general character it was a production of 
considerable ability. The subject was the immortality of the soul; 
which the preacher endeavoured to prove by showing that if it were 
denied, the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God must be 
denied also. I am sorry to add, however, there was not a single 
syllable about Christianity in it from beginning to end ! How 
changed, I could not help thinking, was the preacher from that 
Hector who had once occupied the same pulpit ; and how utterly 
useless his harangue to his unfortunate congregation ! 



316 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

or ecclesiastical court of a particular parish.* Nay, 
M. Fleury highly approves of this primitive and Pres- 
byterian plan of submitting all matters concerning the 
church to a council thus constituted, and reprobates 
the idea of the bishop or clergyman deciding on such 
matters in virtue of his own individual authority. 

" Les eveques avoient toujours devant les yeux le 
precepte de Saint Pierre et de Jesus Christ meme, de 
ne pas imiter la domination des rois de la terre, qui 
rend toujours au despotique. N'etant point presomp- 
tueux, ils ne croyoient pas connoitre seuls la verite ; 
ils se defioient de leurs lumieres, et n'etoient point 
jaloux de celles des autres. Ils cedoient volontiers a 
celui qui donnoit un meilleur avis. Les assemblies 
ont cet avantage, qu'il y a d'ordinaire quelqu'un qui 
montre le bon parti, et y ramene les autres, on se re- 
specte mutuellement, et on a honte de paroitre injuste 
au public : ceux dont la vertu est plus foible sont sou- 
tenus par les autres. II n'est pas aise de corrompre 
une compagnie : mais il est facile de gagner un seul 
homme, ou celui qui le gouverne ; et s'il se determine 
seul, il suit la pente de ses passions, qui n'a point de 
contrepoids. D'ailleurs, les resolutions communes sont 
toujours mieux executees : chacun croit en etre l'auteur, 
et ne fait que sa volonte. II est vrai qu'il est bien plus 
court de commander et de contraindre ; et que pour 
persuader il faut de l'industrie et de la patience : mais 
les hommes sages, humbles, et charitables, vont tou- 

* It does not alter the case in the slightest degree that the pres- 
byters or elders of the primitive church were styled " clergy" as well 
as the bishop. It is the status and office that are of consequence ; 
the mere name or designation is of no moment. The presbyters or 
elders of the ancient church were appointed in the same manner 
and for precisely the same purposes as the spiritual functionaries 
who are designated lay-elders in the Presbyterian church ; and the 
modern Presbyterian minister is as much the bishop of his diocese 
or parish as any primitive bishop ever was, and holds his office on as 
good a title as any such bishop ever did. 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 317 

jours au plus sur et au plus doux, et ne plaignent point 
leur peine, pour le bien de la chose dont il s'agit. lis 
n'en viennent a la force qu'a la derniere extremite. 

" Ce sont les raisons que j'ai pu comprendre du gou- 
vernement ecclesiastique. En chaque eglise l'eveque 
ne faisoit rien d'important sans le conseil des pretres, 
des diacres, et des principaux de son clerge. Souvent 
meme il consultoit tout le peuple quand il avoit interet 
a Taifaire, comme aux ordinations." — Ubi supra. 

After this able Roman Catholic vindication of the 
Presbyterian practice in transacting the affairs of each 
particular church in a council composed of the bishop 
or minister, and the elders or representatives of the 
people, it will not be necessary to spend much time in 
exposing the ignorance and presumption of Captain 
Marryat, in ascribing the prevalence of this primitive 
practice in the leading denominations in America to the 
evil and innovating influence of the Voluntary system. 
If that system has indeed been instrumental, as I grant 
it has, in bringing back the American churches, almost 
universally, to what so unprejudiced a witness as M. 
Fleury informs us was the uniform practice of the Chris- 
tian church for the first six centuries of its existence, 
— I mean in reference to the election of the clergy 
by the people, and the participation of the laity in the 
government of the church — it is one of the best 
arguments in favour of that system which has ever been 
adduced.* 

* " Another great evil, arising from the, peculiarity of the Volun- 
tary System, is that in many of the principal sects, the power has 
been wrested from the clergy and assumed by the laity, who exercise 
an inquisition most injurious to the cause of religion ; and to such 
an excess of tyranny is this power exercised that it depends upon 
the laity, and not upon the clergy, whether any individual shall or 
shall not be admitted as a communicant at the table of our Lord." 
■ — Marryafs Diary, p. 203. Amer. Edit. 

Why, even in Scotland, where there is no Voluntary System, Dr. 
Chalmers himself was under precisely the same restraint as a Pres- 

2 e 2 



318 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

The following is a list of the various religious 
denominations that may be classed under the general 
designation of Presbyterians in the United States ; the 
first division including those bodies whose whole system 
of doctrine, discipline, and worship coincides entirely 
with that of the Church of Scotland, while the other two, 
coinciding with the rest in doctrine and worship, differ 
only in this, that their church courts, or ecclesiastical 
councils, derive their authority, not from any inherent 
power, but from the force of public opinion, and the 
practice of the church. 

I. Presbyterians Proper : — 

Churche8. Ministers. 

1. Amer. Presb. Church; 1st Di- 

vision, or Old School . .1823 1435* 

2. Amer. Presb. Church ; 2nd Di- 

vision, or New School 

3. Dutch Reformed Church 

4. German Reformed Church 

5. Cumberland Synod 

6. Associate Synod 

7. Reformed Synod 

8. Associate Reformed 

II. Congregational Presbyterians 

III. Lutherans . 



1286 


1286f 


200 


200 


600 


200 


500 


450 


183 


87 


40 


20 


214 


116 


1300 


1150 


1000 


400 



Total . .7146 5344 



The whole of these bodies are agreed in holding the 
great doctrines of the Protestant Reformation — the divi- 
nity of Christ ; the total depravity of man ; atonement 

byterian clergyman. The Voluntary System has nothing to do with 
the matter; it is simply the law and practice of the church, under 
the Presbyterian discipline, that the admission of members shall 
take place with the consent of the eldership. 

* Including 192 Licentiates, t Including 105 Licentiates. 

2 e 2 



EELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 319 

for sin, through the death of Christ ; the necessity of re- 
generation, through the influences of the Spirit of God ; 
justification by faith alone. The Dutch Church holds 
the Confession of the Synod of Dort, and the Lutherans 
that of Augsburg ; the others receive as their standard 
of doctrine the Westminster Confession of Faith. I 
am aware, indeed, that doctrines have been promul- 
gated, of late, in two of the New England colleges, 
which have been regarded as heretical by orthodox 
Presbyterians. I am also aware that something like 
Pelagianism has recently been taught, in various 
quarters, in the Second or New School Division of the 
American Presbyterian Church ; but, from the uniform 
result of my own frequent inquiries, in all parts of the 
Union which I visited, I was led to believe that these 
heretical doctrines were confined only to a few ; and 
that the great body of the clergy and people, even in 
that division of the Presbyterian church against which 
the charge of heresy has been preferred, were still firm 
and unshaken in their attachment to the doctrines of 
the Westminster Confession. The charge of heresy 
had, at all events, been preferred against individuals of 
the Presbyterian clergy, at a time when there were 
various other exciting questions agitating the American 
Presbyterian church ; and it appeared to me, that, in 
such circumstances, the one party was as much inclined 
to aggravate the alleged heresies, as the other to over- 
step the bounds of propriety in throwing the shield of 
their protection over the individuals who had broached 
them. 

Accustomed as I had been, from my youth up, to 
the lean, gaunt form of Scottish orthodoxy, with neither 
a heart nor a soul beneath its ribs of death, and with 
its apron of fig-leaves tucked around it to cover the 
nakedness of the land, I confess it was not less novel 
to me, than it was extremely gratifying, to witness the 
vigour and the life, the piety and the zeal, the self- 



320 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

denial and. the self-devotedness, that evidently charac- 
terized both sections of the American Presbyterian 
Church. In such circumstances — it may have been a 
weakness in me, I confess, and some of my excellent 
friends of the Old School may doubtless think it so ; 
but in such circumstances — -I was not disposed to hunt 
for heresy in America. 

The past year has been a year of great revival in the 
churches of the evangelical communions in the United 
States, especially in New England and New York ; 
not fewer than a hundred and forty localities, situated 
in eleven of the States, having experienced "refreshing 
from the presence of the Lord." The shock which the 
whole mercantile community of the Union had just ex- 
perienced, from the circumstances of the times, proved 
highly favourable to solemn reflection, and led multi- 
tudes of gay and thoughtless persons to "consider their 
ways ;" and many, whom the providence of God had 
called to mourn over the ruin of their worldly fortunes, 
or the disappointment of their worldly hopes, were thus 
enabled to find that pearl of far greater price, which 
they had never dug for in the field of mercantile spe- 
culation. In this important crisis, the Presbyterian 
clergy of the New School were unquestionably zealous 
and successful, in a very high degree ; an exceeding 
great number having been added to their churches, on 
the profession of their faith, in the city of New York 
alone. One of their revivalist preachers, the Rev. Mr. 
Kirk, formerly a missionary in France, from the Ame- 
rican Foreign Evangelical Society, was beyond measure 
zealous and devoted, during the revival — preaching in 
the Broadway Tabernacle, and elsewhere, almost every 
evening in the week, to audiences of upwards of two 
thousand persons. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. 
Kirk on one of these occasions, as well as afterwards, 
in Philadelphia. He is evidently a man of a highly 
cultivated mind, possessing a brilliant imagination, pe- 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 321 

culiarly adapted for pulpit oratory, and animated with 
a burning and apostolic zeal. There was nothing ex- 
travagant in his discourses ; nothing but earnest and 
impassioned appeals to the understanding and the 
heart. Certainly, there was no semblance of heresy 
of any kind. 

As it was chiefly the case of the Rev. Albert Barnes, 
minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Phila- 
delphia, who had been accused of Pelagianism, that 
had led to the recent division of the American Pres- 
byterian Church into the two General Assemblies of 
which it is now composed, I felt naturally desirous— 
notwithstanding my aversion to enter deeply into the 
heresy question — of ascertaining what sort of person 
an American Pelagian was ; and, as I had been accus- 
tomed to see Pelagianism in Scotland uniformly ex- 
hibiting the cheerless aspect of a frozen lake in the 
midst of a wintry forest, with no sign of vitality on its 
cold and glassy surface, I confess that, in going to hear 
Mr. Barnes, I was prepared for something of a similar 
kind. 

Mr. Barnes is a man of middle age and middle size, 
of dark complexion, with a countenance strongly 
bearing the impress of study and intelligence. His 
manner is by no means characterized by energy; on the 
contrary, it seems rather flat and cold at first. His 
voice seldom rises above a moderate pitch, and his 
language is very rarely impassioned. And yet, he 
manages, somehow, to get hold of the attention of his 
audience at once, and to retain a firm grasp of it to the 
last. I heard Mr. Barnes twice. On one of these oc- 
casions, the subject of his discourse, which was one of 
a series on the divine attributes, was, The Mercy of 
God, from the text, " The Lord God, merciful and 
gracious." 

In the outset of his discourse — the object of which 
was, 1st, to illustrate the nature of mercy ; and, 2nd, 



322 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

to prove that God was a merciful Being — Mr. Barnes 
remarked, that there was nothing so frequently in men's 
mouths, especially when religion was the subject of 
their conversation, as the mercy of God ; and the cur- 
rent phraseology, which described the mercy of God as 
" his darling attribute " — a phrase for which there was no 
Scriptural warrant — showed that mercy was the attri- 
bute of the Divine character, to which men were uni- 
versally inclined to look as their source of hope, and on 
which they were disposed to place their reliance. Very 
inadequate conceptions, however, prevail on the sub- 
ject. The infidel, for example, trusts to God's mercy, 
because he thinks it would not be right for God to 
punish men at all for what he considers their venial 
offences. This was not trusting to God's mercy ; it 
was trusting rather to his justice. The case was the 
same with the formal professor of religion, and with the 
Universalist — (this heretical sect was making some 
efforts to attract notice in Philadelphia at the time) — 
these persons think it would be wrong for God to 
punish men for ever, for their sins in this life. It is 
God's justice, therefore, and not his mercy, that consti- 
tutes the ground of their hope. 

Mercy, Mr. B. proceeded to show, signifies favour 
extended to the guilty. No government could subsist 
if mercy were to be extended to all the violators of its 
laws. The law would, in that case, lose all power ; 
all reverence and respect for it would be at an end. 
On the other hand, if there were no provision for the 
exercise of mercy, hope would be excluded, on the part 
of the violator of the law, and despair be the result. 
It was necessary, therefore, that the attribute of mercy 
should belong to the Executive under every government. 
It was equally necessary, however, that the exercise of 
mercy should be limited ; and the grand difficulty, in 
all human governments, was how to make the proper 
adjustment. 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 323 

Under the second head of Discourse, Mr. Barnes en- 
deavoured to prove that God was a merciful Being : 

1. From the direct testimony of Scripture on the 
subject ; adducing a variety of passages declaratory of 
the mercy of God, and concluding the enumeration by 
reminding the careless and indifferent hearer, that if he 
continued to turn a deaf ear to the voice of God in 
these declarations, there would assuredly come a time 
when he would give all the universe, if he possessed it, 
to have one of these declarations proclaimed in his 
hearing. 

2. From the state of things around us in the world. 
It was evident from all around us that we were living 
under a dispensation of mercy. The Bible represents 
men as guilty in the sight of God ; as condemned al- 
ready. But compare the manner in which God treats 
those who are thus declared, under his own hand, to be 
violators of his law, with the manner in which man treats 
the violators of his law. He had lately visited one of the 
State Prisons, and had there observed how man treated 
the violators of his law. The criminal was secluded 
from the world, and confined to a cheerless solitary cell ; 
his food and bed were of the coarsest description ; his 
clothing a garb of degradation. He was cut off from 
the society of his own relatives, and prevented from 
holding converse with his fellow-criminals, the last con- 
solation of the wretched. He was condemned, more- 
over, to unremitting labour, without compensation ; with 
an eye of vigilance ever upon him, and armed men upon 
the walls of his prison to prevent his escape. This was 
the way that man treated the violators of his laws. 
But how different was the manner in which God treated 
the violators of his ! If God were not a merciful Be- 
ing, justice would uniformly overtake the criminal in- 
stantaneously. The sword would strike immediately 
after the crime was committed. But it was evident, 
from innumerable instances, that, after the most flagrant 



824 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

violations of God's laws, men were permitted to live at 
ease and in the midst of enjoyments. Far removed 
from the scenes of their criminality, year after year was 
suffered to roll over them, and to leave them undis- 
turbed in the possession of all that the world affords to 
promote the comfort and the happiness of men. Nay, 
even when death came upon them at last, it came di- 
vested of many of its terrors ; the couch of the dying 
man was surrounded by weeping friends ; the wife or the 
daughter was there to administer kindness and conso- 
lation, and ever and anon to wipe away the cold per- 
spiration as it gathered on his brow. This was the way 
in which God treated the violators of his law ; and who 
could doubt from the fact that he was a God of Mercy ? 

3. From the death of Christ. Who ever heard of 
any thing parallel to this manifestation of the Divine 
mercy ? A King giving his Son — his only Son — to save 
a criminal from punishment ? And to such a death 
— nailed to a cross, his hands and feet transfixed in 
the tenderest parts with iron spikes — his forehead 
crowned with thorns driven into his temples — exposed 
to ignominy, contumely and excruciating pain — and 
superadded to all this, a degree of mental suffering and 
sorrow, of which we can form no conception! In short, 
the minister of the Gospel could take his stand at the 
foot of the cross, even if he had no other ground to 
occupy, and proclaim to the world that the Lord was 
indeed a God of Mercy. 

4. From the circumstance that many have actually 
obtained mercy : appealing to the testimony of holy 
men in all ages, as well as to that of every Christian 
man of his own congregation or of their acquaintance ; 
all of whom testified, each for himself individually, that 
thev had obtained mercy at the hand of a merciful 
God. 

Mr. Barnes then reminded the careless or profane 
worshipper, that all the arguments that go to prove that 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 325 

God is a merciful Being, and that we live under a dis- 
pensation of mercy, go to prove also that if we reject 
the offers of God's mercy now, in our accepted time and 
day of salvation, and be consigned at last to that place 
of punishment to which God will finally consign the 
impenitent violators of his law, we shall find that there 
is no mercy there — nothing but endless and hopeless 
despair ! 

Mr. Barnes then concluded with an earnest exhorta- 
tion to all present to close with the offers of God's 
mercy, while it was yet in their power ; reminding them 
that not only the Spirit of God invited them in the most 
affectionate language, but the bride or spouse of Christ 
— the members of his church militant on earth, and the 
members of his church triumphant in heaven, all of 
whom had obtained mercy themselves — invited them in 
the tenderest manner to come and take freely of the 
water of life. 

The conclusion of the discourse was deeply affect- 
ing, and was well calculated to make a strong impres- 
sion on the highly respectable congregation to which it 
was addressed, and which must have amounted to about 
fifteen hundred persons. I kept my eye too intently 
on the preacher to see much of the congregation ; but 
a lady and gentleman in the seat immediately before 
the one I occupied were both dissolved in tears. 

Such, then, was what I found in the First Presbyte- 
rian Church in Philadelphia, where, from the alleged 
Pelagianism of the preacher, I was prepared for some 
such heartless and cheerless scene as that of the Dead 
Sea in the East, where no angel ever comes down from 
heaven to trouble the waters, and where the Spirit of 
God moves not on the face of the deep. I need scarcely 
inform the reader that I was not a little, though most 
agreeably, disappointed. In short, Mr. Barnes was by 
far the most effective preacher, and the man of the 
most original mind, I heard in the United States. 

2 F 



326 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

Of the three hymns sung in the course of the service 
the one after the sermon was Cowper's well known and 
highly evangelical hymn, 



" There is a fountain filled with Wood, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins, &c." 






The one immediately before the sermon was the fol- 
lowing revivalist hymn, which appeared to be rather a 
favourite with Mr. Barnes, as it was sung on both of 
the occasions that I attended divine service in his 
church. I cannot speak highly of its poetry, but there 
is surely nothing like Pelagianism in the sentiments it 
conveys. The music was exquisite. 

I. 

" The voice of Free Grace cries, ' Escape to the mountain H 
For Adam's lost race Christ hath opened a fountain : 
For sin and transgression, and every pollution, 
His blood flows most freely in streams of ablution.' 

CHORUS. 

Hallelujah to Him who hath purchased our pardon ! 
We 11 praise Him still more when we pass over Jordan ! 

II. 

From Jesu's pierced side it flows like a river, 
Bringing pardon and peace to the guilty for ever. 
Though your sins were increased as high as a mountain, 
His blood is sufficient : O come to this fountain ! 

Hallelujah, &c. 

III. 

Blessed Jesus, ride on ; thy kingdom is glorious ! 
O'er sin, death and hell, thou wilt make us victorious. 
Thy name shall be praised in the great congregation ; 
And thy people exult in songs of salvation. 

Hallelujah, &c, 

IV. 

When in Zion we stand, having gained the blest shore, 
With our harps in our hands, we shall praise him still more : 
We will range the bless'd fields on the banks of the river, 
And sing Hallelujahs for ever and ever ! 

Hallelujah, &c." 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 327 

There doubtless have been extravagances of various 
kinds on the part of some of the revivalist preachers of 
the New School, and most unsound doctrine has un- 
questionably been preached and even published by 
some of them ; but that the body is right in the main, 
and that it will be able eventually to purge off this 
leaven, I firmly believe. For my own part, I have long 
regarded self-devotedness and self-denial as the chief 
points of orthodoxy in any church, without which, in- 
deed, all the rest are of no value ; and I have long 
considered the want of these cardinal virtues as the 
greatest of all the heresies that can afflict the Christian 
church. Now, it appeared to me, that the members of 
the New School Assembly were just as unexceptionable 
on these main points as those of the Old ; and it was 
allowed on all hands that the benefits that had resulted 
from their instrumentality in many parts of the Union 
were incalculable. It may be proper, however, to 
enumerate very briefly the circumstances that led to 
the recent division of the American Presbyterian Church 
into two bodies. 

The American Presbyterian Church having increased 
within the short period of half a century from under 
200 to upwards of 2200 ministers, it was naturally to 
be expected that, in its supreme ecclesiastical court, or 
General Assembly — composed as it was of delegates 
from all parts of a country as extensive as the half of 
Europe — considerable variety of opinion would prevail 
on matters of mere subordinate arrangement, and that 
the advantages to be derived from the Assembly as a 
Court of Appeal would be less obvious the more its 
boundaries were extended, and the number of its mi- 
nisters increased. Such, accordingly, was the fact : the 
Assembly became too unwieldy ; parties having oppo- 
site measures to advocate sprung into existence, and a 
struggle for power was the result. 

" As to one Supreme Representative Body" observes 
the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, in his " Fraternal Appeal," 



328 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

" having even limited jurisdiction over all the confede- 
rated bodies, there was none such in the apostolic age, 
and we need none. The tendency of such bodies is 
naturally to an increase of power — they are the foster- 
mothers of papacy, and dangerous to true liberty of 
conscience." 

Coinciding in this opinion, and foreseeing the re- 
sult of the actual state of things in the Presbyterian 
church, the Rev. Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, recom- 
mended in the year 1832, that the subordinate synods 
should be constituted supreme ecclesiastical courts 
for their respective bounds, and the General Assem- 
bly divested of all appellate jurisdiction, and trans- 
formed into a mere advisory body. Such a course 
would have been in perfect accordance with the prin- 
ciples of the Presbyterian polity, and was naturally 
suggested by the circumstances of the case. Indeed, 
it appears to me that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction 
ought, from the first, to have been confined as it 
has always been in New England, within the bounds 
of the civil authority, and a separate and independent 
Presbyterian Church constituted in each, at least, of the 
larger States. Such churches would have exhibited 
a unity of sentiment and a unity of action which were 
not to be expected in one great unwieldy body, com- 
posed of men of such different views on many minor 
points, as those of the East and the West, the North 
and the South in America. I entirely agree with Dr. 
Schmucker, in thinking that the idea of one great Re- 
presentative body, to have jurisdiction over all the 
churches of any one communion in so vast a country as 
America, is objectionable on all the three grounds he 
has enumerated. 

After the General Assembly had co-operated for 
many years with the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions, and the American Home Mission 
and Education Societies, — all of them originally New 
England institutions, — a large proportion of the minister 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 329 

and elders who constituted the Assembly conceived that 
the Presbyterian Church should have Boards of its 
own for these objects, and that such Boards would 
command, to a much greater extent than mere volun- 
tary associations, the confidence and the sympathies of 
the church generally. They conceived, moreover, and 
I apprehend rightly, that they were bound to prosecute 
these objects as a Christian church, rather than as a 
voluntary association ; and that their doing so would 
tend to infuse new life and vigour into their body, and 
to excite a stronger interest among their people on 
behalf of the missionary work and the general propa- 
gation of the gospel. The rest of the members of the 
Assembly maintained, however, that the formation of 
such Boards was uncalled for ; that the management of 
boards, and funds, and agencies was not the proper 
work of the Christian ministry ; that the patronage and 
the power they would create were dangerous to the 
purity of the church, and that as the voluntary associa- 
tions with which they were connected were working well, 
it would be much better to maintain and strengthen 
than to dissolve that connexion. It is impossible not 
to respect the men who differ on such points, on such 
grounds as these. 

In the Assembly of 1835, the party who preferred 
having separate Boards had a majority, and engagements 
were accordingly made, on the part of that Assembly, 
to carry their views into effect. In the following year, 
however, the other party having the majority, the votes 
of the Assembly of 1835 were rescinded, and the 
engagements into which that Assembly had entered set 
aside. In this Assembly also, the Rev. Albert Barnes, 
who had been prosecuted on a charge of heresy, as 
holding Pelagian doctrines, before the Presbytery and 
Synod of Philadelphia, and had appealed from their 
decision to the General Assembly, was fully acquitted, 
and continued in regular standing with the church, 

2 f 2 



330 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

These measures not only gave great offence, but 
occasioned great alarm to the party favourable to the 
formation of separate Boards ; who, considering the 
purity of the church in imminent danger, in conse- 
quence of certain resolutions passed in the case of Mr. 
Barnes, resolved, in a Convention or extraordinary 
meeting held at Philadelphia, to carry into effect, in the 
next Assembly, a measure which, however it may be 
justified on the plea of necessity, is certainly justifiable 
on no other. This measure was nothing less than, by 
a simple resolution of the General Assembly, virtually 
to cut off from the Presbyterian Church not fewer than 
four synods, containing twenty-eight presbyteries, and 
comprising altogether 509 ministers, 599 churches, and 
nearly 60,000 communicants. Accordingly, in the As- 
sembly of 1837, a resolution to this effect was proposed 
and carried by a majority of 148 to 1 10 ; the exscinded 
Synods being those of Utica, Geneva, Gennesee, and 
Western Reserve, in the States of New York and 
Ohio. 

As this proceeding will require some explanation, I 
must inform the reader that it originated in a friendly 
and fraternal connexion between the General Assembly 
and the kindred churches of New England, subsisting 
almost from the period of the original formation of 
the Assembly. 

In the year 1792, a Convention of the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
States and of the General Association of the State of 
Connecticut having been held, in pursuance of certain 
Resolutions of the General Assembly passed in the 
years 1790 and 1791, with a view to arrange a plan of 
intercourse between the two churches, certain Resolu- 
tions were passed by that Convention, of which the 
following is an extract : — 

" Considering the importance of union and harmony 
in the Christian church, and the duty incumbent on all 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 331 

its pastors and members to assist each other, in 
promoting, as far as possible, the general interest of the 
Redeemer's kingdom ; and considering further, that 
Divine Providence appears to be now opening the 
door for pursuing these valuable objects, with a happy- 
prospect of success ; — 

" This Convention are of opinion, that it will be 
conducive to these important purposes, 

" That a Standing Committee of Correspondence be 
appointed in each body, whose duty it shall be, by 
frequent letters, to communicate to each other what- 
ever may be mutually useful to the churches under 
their care, and to the general interest of the Redeemer's 
kingdom. 

" That each body should from time to time appoint 
a Committee consisting of three members, who shall 
have a right to sit in the other's general meeting, and 
make such communications as shall be directed by their 
respective constituents, and deliberate on such matters as 
shall come before the body ; but shall have no right to vote. 
" That effectual measures be mutually taken to 
prevent injuries to the respective churches, from irre- 
gular and unauthorized preachers. 

" To promote this end, the Convention judge it 
expedient that every preacher, travelling from the 
limits of one of these churches into those of the other, 
shall be furnished with recent testimonials of his regular 
standing and good character as a preacher, signed by 
the Moderator of the Presbytery or Association in 
which he received his license ; or, if a minister, of his 
good standing and character as such, from the Moderator 
of the Presbytery or Association where he last resided ; 
and that he shall, previously to his travelling as a 
preacher into distant parts, further receive a recom- 
mendation from one member at least, of a standing 
Committee to be hereafter appointed by each body* 
certifying his good qualifications as a preacher." 



332 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

Of this plan the Assembly of 1792 unanimously 
and cordially approved ; appointing the Rev. Dr. John 
Rogers, Dr. John Witherspoon, and Dr. Ashbel Green, 
as their Committee of Correspondence with the General 
Association of Connecticut, which also approved of the 
plan, and appointed the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, 
(a son of the celebrated divine of the same name,) 
Dr. Timothy D wight, and Mr. Matthias Burnet, as 
their representatives to the Assembly. 

In the Assembly of 1794 it was proposed that the 
delegates of the two churches should be authorised to 
vote in all questions decided in the Supreme Ecclesi- 
astical Courts of these churches respectively ; to which 
the General Association agreed, in their sessions of the 
same year, as is attested by Jonathan Edwards, Scribe 
of the General Association for that year. 

About the period just referred to, there was an exten- 
sive emigration towards the western portions of the State 
of New York from the older or eastern settlements of that 
State, as well as from the neighbouring State of Con- 
necticut ; and with a view to the case which this 
emigration originated, certain resolutions were proposed 
by the General Assembly, and agreed to by the 
General Association of Connecticut, in the year 1801, 
for the government of the churches that might be 
planted in these new settlements. By the second of 
these resolutions it was provided, "that if any church 
of the Congregational order, in the new settlements, 
should settle a minister of the Presbyterian order, that 
church might, if it chose, still conduct its discipline 
according to Congregational principles ; settling their 
difficulties among themselves, or by a council mutually 
agreed upon for that purpose. But that if any difficulty 
should exist between the minister and the church or any 
member of it, it should be referred to the Presbytery to 
which the minister should belong, provided both parties 
agreed to it ; if not, to a council consisting of an equal 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 333 

number of Presbyterians and Congregationalists, agreed 
upon by both parties." A similar arrangement was 
provided for the case of a Presbyterian Church calling 
a minister of Congregational principles.* 

Similar arrangements were subsequently made be- 
tween the General Assembly, on the one hand, and the 
General Associations of the other New England States 
on the other — with the Convention of Vermont in 
1803, with the General Association of New Hamp- 
shire in 1810, and with that of Massachusetts in 1811. 

As the emigrants from New England were settled 
chiefly in the tract of country occupied by the four 
Synods above referred to, the churches originally found- 
ed on this basis were all within the bounds of these 
Synods. And as the General Assembly had in the 
mean time left these churches in great measure to regu- 
late themselves agreeably to their own views of pro- 
priety, great irregularities in point of church-order were 
the result ; some having elders and others committees, 
some having their affairs managed in one way and 
others in another. Extensive revivals had indeed taken 
place throughout the whole region ; but these, instead 
of diminishing, had only increased the irregularities, 
through the disorganizing measures of the zealous, but 
unskilful and injudicious men by whom they were not 
unfrequently conducted. Strange doctrines had also 
been extensively, but in all likelihood unconsciously, pro- 
mulgated in these districts by really evangelical and 
exemplary men — Perfectionism on the one hand, and 
Pelagianism on the other. Still, however, all these rea- 
sons combined could scarcely be supposed to have con- 
stituted a sufficient ground for the immediate and un- 
conditional excision of four Synods, containing 28 Pres- 
byteries, and 509 ministers, who had all grown up within 
the pale of the Presbyterian Church, under an ecclesiasti- 

* Digest, compiled from the records of the General Assembly of 
the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Phila- 
delphia, 1820. 



334 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

cal arrangement, which had been originally entered into 
by the General Assembly of its own accord, and had 
remained unquestioned by the Church for thirty-five 
years. On the ground, however, that the arrangement 
was unconstitutional, and therefore null and void from 
the first, the majority in the Assembly of 1837 passed 
aresolution, annulling the compact of 1801, and cutting 
off the four Synods that had been formed in virtue of 
that compact from the Presbyterian Church. 

In the Assembly of 1838, the delegates of the four 
Synods, presenting themselves as usual to the Clerks of 
Assembly, were refused admittance into that body ; and 
the circumstance occasioned so much excitement that 
the two parties, who were nearly balanced, eventually 
separated from each other, and held meetings in diffe- 
rent churches — each claiming to be the General Assem- 
bly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America. There being certain property, consisting 
chiefly of colleges, held by the Trustees of the General 
Assembly, under a charter from the State of Pennsyl- 
vania, it became a matter of question to which Assem- 
bly it should belong, and the subject was referred for 
adjudication to the judges of the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania. In the first instance, the Hon. Judge 
Rodgers decided in favour of what is popularly called 
the New School — the Assembly that opposed the for- 
mation of separate Boards, and made common cause with 
the exscinded Synods ; but that decision was subse- 
quently reversed by the judges in banco, and the pro- 
perty now belongs to what is popularly designated the 
Old School — the Assembly having separate Boards. 

With the highest esteem for the pious and excellent 
men of the Old School, and giving them all due credit 
for their zeal for the truth, I confess I cannot sympa- 
thise with them in the general charge of heresy which 
some of them have preferred against their brethren of 
the New School. Many of the latter are equally sound 
in the faith with themselves ; the circumstance of their 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 335 

making common cause with the exscinded Synods having 
arisen solely from their conviction that the act of excision 
was unconstitutional and unwarrantable. Into the jus- 
tice or the policy of that act, however, it is now unne- 
cessary to inquire, and I should be sorry to offer a strong 
opinion on the subject either way. Its results — and that 
is the important consideration — have been decidedly and 
extensively beneficial. It has restored peace to the most 
influential communion in the United States. Each of 
the two Assemblies now exhibits a unity of sentiment 
and a unity of action which before were unattainable ; 
and I firmly believe that the great majority of the mem- 
bers of both are animated with a fervent zeal for the 
glory of God and the salvation of men. The following 
account of the recent formation of a new church in 
connexion with the New School Assembly, which I 
extract from the Philadelphia Christian Observer of 
May 14, 1840, will afford the reader some idea of the 
usual procedure on such occasions in America, and will 
also, in all likelihood, lead him to conclude that the 
charge of heresy is, in great measure, unfounded. 

" Application was recently made to the Third Pres- 
bytery of Philadelphia to organize a church at West 
Nantmeal, Chester County, Pennsylvania, and Pres- 
bytery appointed a committee, consisting of Rev. 
Messrs. Adair and Bidwell, and P. F. Smith, Esq., two 
of whom proceeded to the performance of the duty as- 
signed them on the first Sabbath in May. 

" A neat and commodious house for the public worship 
of God has been erected in West Nantmeal of sufficient 
size to seat a large congregation. The appearance and 
dimensions of the edifice are very creditable to the pub- 
lic spirit and enterprise of the people, and give a flat- 
tering token of their ability and willingness to sustain 
the institutions of the gospel. Their church was dedi- 
cated a few months since. 

" At the time appointed a Presbyterian Church was 
duly organized on the basis of the constitution, consist- 



336 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

ing of 2 1 members. One Ruling Elder was duly elected 
and ordained to his sacred office. 

" Nearly double this number of persons have ex- 
pressed a desire to become members of this infant 
church, but were prevented from uniting in the organ- 
ization by various reasons ; some from the difficulty of 
obtaining certificates of membership from the church, 
(Old School,) to which they belong ; others from false 
rumours of error in doctrine, and unfounded assertions 
that they were withdrawing to unite with a church of 
' another denomination, ' not truly Presbyterian, but 
which denies some of the cardinal doctrines of the gos- 
pel. But as the organization was conducted in strict 
accordance with the Confession of Faith, and the long 
established usages of the Presbyterian Church, all had 
an opportunity of judging for themselves. A large 
congregation attended on the occasion, and manifested 
a deep interest in the services and transactions of the 
day. The following summary of doctrine, together 
with the covenant, was assented to by the twenty-one 
members, in presence of the congregation. 

" In the presence of your Maker and this assembly, 
you do now appear, desiring publicly and solemnly to 
enter into covenant with God as a Church of Christ, 
according to the gospel ; professing your full assent to 
the following summary of faith : — 

"Art. 1. — You solemnly and publicly profess your 
belief in one God, the Almighty maker of heaven and 
earth, who upholds all things and orders all events, 
according to his own pleasure, and for his own glory. — 
Deut. iv. 4. Rev. iv. 11. Jer. x. 10. 1 Cor. vii. 4, 6. 

" Art. 2. — You believe that this glorious Being exists 
in three persons : God the Father, God the Son, and 
God the Holy Ghost, and that these three are one, being 
the same in substance, equal in power and glory. — 
John i. 1 — 14. Acts v. 3, 4. 1 John v. 7. 

"Art. 3. — You believe that the Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments are given by inspiration of 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 337 

God, and are our only rule of faith and practice. — 
1 Tim. iii. 16. Isa. viii. 20. 2 Pet. i. 19—21. Gal. i. 
8, 9. 

" Art. 4. — You believe that God at first created man 
upright in the image of God ; that our first parents fell 
from their original uprightness and involved themselves 
and their posterity in a state of sin and misery.— Gen. 
i. 27. Rom. v. 12. Eph. iv. 24. 

" Art. v. — You believe that all men, since the fall, 
are by nature depraved, having no conformity of heart 
to God, and being destitute of all moral excellence. — 
Gen. vi. 5. Ps. xiv. 1 — 5. Rom. iii. 10—18. 

" Art. 6. — You believe that Jesus Christ is the 
Saviour of sinners, and the only mediator between God 
and man. — Matt. ix. 13. 1 Tim. ii. 5. 

" Art. 7. — You believe in the necessity of the re- 
newing and sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit, 
and that to be happy you must be holy. — John iii. 
3—5. Titus iii. 5. 

" Art. 8. — You believe that sinners are justified by 
faith alone through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 
— Eph. ii. 8. Rom. iii. 24. 

" Art. 9. — You believe that the saints will be kept 
by the mighty power of God from the dominion of 
sin and from final condemnation, and that at the last day 
they will be raised incorruptible and be for ever happy 
with the Lord. — John x. 27, 28, 29. Job xix. 26, 27. 
1 Cor. xv. 51—54. 

" Art. 10. — You believe that the finally impenitent 
will be punished " with everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." 
— Rev. xxii. 15. Matt. xxv. 46. 

" Thus you believe in your hearts, and thus you 
confess before men. 

COVENANT. 

" You do now, under this belief of the Christian 

2 G 



338 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

religion, as held in this church, publicly and solemnly 
avouch the Eternal Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, to be your God and the God of yours, engaging 
to devote yourselves to his fear and service, to walk in 
his ways, and to keep his commandments. With a 
humble reliance on his Spirit, you engage to live an- 
swerably to the profession you now make, submitting 
yourselves to the laws of Christ's kingdom, and to that 
discipline which he has appointed to be administered in 
his church. That you may obtain the assistance you 
need, you engage diligently to attend, and carefully to 
improve all the ordinances he hath instituted. 

" Thus you covenant, promise and engage in the fear 
of God and by the help of his Spirit. 

" In consequence of these professions and promises, 
we affectionately recognise you as a Presbyterian Church, 
and in the name of Christ declare you entitled to all 
its visible privileges. We welcome you to this fellow- 
ship with us, in the blessings of the gospel, and on our 
part, engage to watch over you and to seek your edifi- 
cation as long as you shall continue among us. 

" May the Lord support and guide you through a tran- 
sitory life, and after this warfare is accomplished, receive 
you to that blessed church where our love shall be for 
ever perfect, and our joy for ever full. Amen. 

" A church has thus been planted under favourable 
auspices, which we trust God will own by the presence 
of his Spirit, and make it the birth-place of souls, and 
a rich blessing to the people in that interesting region 
of country."* 

* The salaries of the Presbyterian clergy in North Carolina and 
Virginia, and I believe in Pennsylvania and New York also, vary 
from 500 to 800 dollars— virtually from 150/. to 250Z. — per an- 
num. As a specimen of the comparative cheapness of the neces- 
saries of life in these regions, I may mention that eggs sell at 5 
cents., or 2\d. per dozen ; and Turkeys, at 25 to 30 cents each, or 
from Is. to Is. 3d. Flour, butcher's meat, tea and sugar are all 
very cheap. 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 839 

Although the Dutch Reformed Church has been 
accused of being somewhat slower in its movements 
than the other Presbyterian communions, its clergy are 
at this moment alike eminent for orthodoxy of doctrine 
and piety of life. There is a greater number compara- 
tively of endowed churches of the Dutch communion 
than of any other in America, and a distinguished cler- 
gyman of that denomination informed me that it was 
generally observed that the Dutch churches that were the 
best endowed were uniformly the least liberal and the least 
disposed to take either interest or concern in the great 
Christian operations of the day.* The Dutch Church in 
the city of New York has a splendid endowment — the 
bequest of Mynheer Haberdinck, an honest Dutch shoe- 
maker who flourished in New York about a century ago. 
Mynheer Haberdinck was a man of frugal habits, and 
his wife, the Vrouw Haberdinck, was equally economical. 

The Presbyterian churches in America have no pulpits, properly 
so called. They have merely a platform and a reading-desk. This 
arrangement is certainly much more favourable for oratorical effect ; 
but I never got " used to it." The clergy, with very few excep- 
tions, wear neither gowns nor bands. I disliked this, I confess ; 
but what I disliked still more was to see some of the younger clergy 
officiating with black silk cravats, so that the clergyman was not 
distinguishable in attire from a haberdasher's shop-boy. This was 
a great deal too republican for all my ideas of propriety. 

* The Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson, of Boston, an eminent minister 
of the Congregational Presbyterian Church, and one of the Secreta- 
ries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions ; 
the Rev. Dr. Bethune, of the Dutch Reformed Church, Philadel- 
phia ; and the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, President of the Lutheran 
Divinity College at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania — all of whom are 
deeply engaged in the cause of Missions and in the other benevolent 
operations of the day, and better acquainted perhaps with the state 
of feeling in their respective churches than any other ministers of 
the three denominations they belong to — all coincided in assuring me 
of the uniform tendency and effect of an endowment in these 
ehurches as being that of lowering and progressively extinguishing 
the principle of benevolence in the church that enjoys it. I sub- 
mit it to the Christian reader, whether a tree which uniformly pro- 
duces such fruit can be of Christ's planting. 



340 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 






As there were no Savings' Banks, however, in these 
primitive times, the worthy Dutchman ordered a hol- 
low globe of cast-iron to be made for him in Holland, 
with a small aperture, sufficient to admit a small 
piece of money. In this domestic bank, Mynheer 
Haberdinck and his wife regularly deposited their 
savings ; and when it refused to admit a single stiver 
more, the stout Dutchman took a sledge hammer, and 
broke the bank, and, with a part of the money, pur- 
chased a small farm of eight acres, near the little town 
of New York, which was then in the market. This 
farm he afterwards bequeathed to the Dutch Church in 
New York, making his wife's sister his residuary lega- 
tee. The little farm is now in the centre of the modern 
city, and constitutes a property worth from two to three 
millions of dollars. This property is held in trust for 
the church by the Consistory, and grants from it are 
regularly made for the erection of additional churches of 
the Dutch Reformed communion in the city and neigh- 
bourhood. The representatives of the residuary le- 
gatee, however, have lately endeavoured to establish 
their title to the greater part of the property, under the 
English statute of mortmain, which incapacitates a 
church from inheriting real estate to an amount greater 
than £500 sterling, per annum. The suit was insti- 
tuted in the Court of Errors in New York, but was 
decided in favour of the church, on the ground of ninety 
years' possession, by a majority of 22 to 17. All the 
old and experienced judges, however, gave their written 
opinion in favour of the claimants, who have since car- 
ried their claim into the Supreme Court of the United 
States. The gentleman who informed me of the cir- 
cumstance — a merchant of New York, of Dutch extrac- 
tion — added, that some of the more influential members 
of their communion think they would be better without 
the property altogether, as it really does them more 
harm than good. The Dutch Reformed communion 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 341 

have a Theological Seminary or Divinity College at 
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and they support mis- 
sionaries both in China and France. 

A large portion of the German emigrants, both of the 
Lutheran and German Reformed communions, in the 
United States, consist of Rationalists ; but it is a sin* 
gular fact, as illustrative of the working of the Volun- 
tary System, that Rationalism has been quite unable to 
establish a footing for itself in America. With the ex- 
ception of a single Rationalist church in Philadelphia, 
the whole of the American German clergy, both of the 
Lutheran and Reformed communions, are evangelical 
men. Rationalist ministers have emigrated to America 
in the usual proportion with their countrymen ; but 
with the single exception I have mentioned, they have 
found it necessary to abandon their profession, and to 
become instructors of youth, lawyers, and writers for the 
press ; for they are not admitted into either of the 
American German communions. In short, Rationalism 
requires for its maintenance and preservation in the 
world the fostering support of a European establishment 
— the Voluntary System starves it out in America. 
The Rev. Dr. Schmucker, to whom I am indebted for 
this information, added, that the circumstance beauti- 
fully illustrates the self- preserving character of genuine 
Christianity ; for whenever the church degenerates into 
Rationalism, the people refuse to pay for its support. 
The salaries of the Lutheran and German Reformed 
clergy in the United States are generally from 500 to 
600 dollars per annum ; and they have usually two or 
three churches, at considerable distances from each 
other, in which they officiate by turns. 

Next to the different bodies of Presbyterians taken 
together, the Baptists and Methodists are the most nu- 
merous denominations in the United States. As there 
has been a separate work, however, published within the 
last few years, by the Rev. Drs. Cox and Hoby, entitled 

2 g 2 



342 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

" The Baptists in America," and as I presume the Rev. 
Robert Newton,* the Delegate from the Methodists of 
England to their brethren in America, will give some 

* At the anniversary of the American Bible Society, held in the 
Broadway Tabernacle, New York, on the 14th of May last, the 
Rev. Robert Newton addressed the numerous assembly present, in 
a speech which I confess did not appear to me peculiarly effective ; 
and there was one of those clap-trap exhibitions at the close of it 
that would, in my estimation at least, spoil the best speech that was 
ever delivered. When drawing towards the conclusion of his address, 
Mr. Newton appeared suddenly to recollect that he had something 
additional to say, and turning to the chairman, abruptly told him, 
of course to the wonderment of the audience, that when he was 
lately in the city of "Washington, he had found an eagle's nest. He 
then entered into one of those descriptions of the eagle which " the 
good boy who minds his book" will find in Goldsmith's Natural 
History, or any other work of a similar kind in the Child's Library — 
its piercing eye, its strength of wing, its lofty flight. &c. &c. — con- 
cluding by putting into the hands of the chairman, from a small 
purse he held in his hand, ten or twenty " eagles," an American 
gold coin of about the value of an English guinea, which a zealous 
Methodist in Washington had given him for the purpose. 

" 'Twas pitiful — 'twas wondrous pitiful ! 
I wished I had not heard it!" 

I always ask myself on such occasions, Would the Apostle Paul 
have condescended to such mountebank expedients ? And the an- 
swer I uniformly receive is, No ! 

Mr. Newton's example, however, was too good not to be imitated, 
or rather exceeded. For at a subsequent Anniversary Meeting, the 
Rev. Mr. Kirk, the revivalist preacher, actually produced, from one 
of his pockets, T forget which, a child's silver caudle-spoon, which 
had been given him as a subscription to the Society, by one of those 
" silly women" whom the Apostle Paul speaks of somewhere, who 
thought, I presume, that her child could do equally well with a horn 
spoon. Now, as Hamlet says to the Players, I would say to Mr. 
Kirk, in reference to all such practices in future, " Pray you avoid 
it !" Mr. K. has no need to descend to such modes of " getting 
up the steam" at a public meeting. Let him only recollect his 
proper place and character, and I am sure he will never be at a 
loss for appropriate matter of address to a Christian assembly ; 
for he is really a superior man. 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 343 

account of that denomination in the United States on 
his return to England, I shall confine myself to a few- 
general remarks on both denominations. The Baptists 
have 4239 ministers, and 452,000 members ; and the 
Methodists, 3290 ministers, and 740,459 members. It 
is chiefty, however, to the humbler and less influential 
classes of the community that the members of these 
bodies belong. They are not numerous, comparatively, 
in New England, nor in the Middle or more advanced 
States. Their strength lies principally in the Slave 
States of the South, and in the more recently settled 
regions of the West. 

It may not be uninteresting even to the philosophical 
inquirer, and it is certainly a subject of deep interest 
to the Christian divine, to ascertain the causes that have 
led to the rapid increase of the Methodist and Baptist 
denominations in the United States of America ; for 
the subject evidently involves a problem in philosophy 
as well as in religion. To solve this problem, therefore, 
I conceive we have only to consider the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of American society. In the progressive 
occupation of the vast territories to the Southward and 
Westward, that have been taken possession of by civil- 
ized men in the United States during the last fifty years, 
a large portion of the American people have at all times 
during that period been separated, so to speak, from the 
rest of mankind, and thinly scattered over a vast ex- 
tent of the whole territory of the Union. Now, it is a 
fact not to be questioned, that when men, who have 
themselves received a Christian education in their youth, 
have been living for years in the wilderness, and have 
families growing up around them, with neither a church 
nor a school within fifty or a hundred miles, they come 
gradually to sit very loose to all denominational predi- 
lections ; and when a minister of religion visits them at 
length in their solitude, and dispenses to them the word 
of life, and administers his blessing to their little ones, 



344 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

— whether that minister be an Episcopalian, a Presby- 
terian, a Methodist, or a Baptist — they will in all likeli- 
hood receive him with the utmost cordiality and affec- 
tion, saying, " How beautiful upon the mountains are 
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pub- 
lisheth peace ; that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
publisheth salvation !" 

It cannot be denied, moreover, that among the ori- 
ginal emigrants of the South and West in America, the 
number of Methodists and Baptists was much smaller 
than that of either of the other two leading denomina- 
tions of the United States ; and it cannot be doubted, 
therefore, that if these other denominations had adopted 
the same plan of procedure as the Methodists and Bap- 
tists, and had animated that plan with the same amount 
of energy and zeal, they would have been equally suc- 
cessful. The Episcopalians have certainly had but 
little of a missionary character in the United States till 
very recently ; but as the Presbyterian Church in Ame- 
rica has been a missionary Church from the first, why, 
it may be asked, has that denomination been left be- 
hind, as it has evidently been, by the Methodists and 
Baptists, in the South and West ? Why, the answer 
is obvious ; while the Presbyterians were educating 
their men for the South and West at Princeton and 
New Haven, the Methodists and the Baptists, who 
never troubled themselves about education in the first 
instance, had their local preachers and their elders on the 
spot, and, like Absalom, " stole away the hearts of the 
men of Israel." Now, with the highest respect for 
education and an educated ministry — and no man can 
well have a higher — I would appeal to all the Univer- 
sities of Europe, whether, in such circumstances, it was 
not rather the Methodists and the Baptists than the 
Presbyterians, that were the " men of understanding, 
who knew the times, and what Israel ought to do." 
In short, the main secret of the wonderful success of 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 845 

the Methodists and Baptists in America has been the fact, 
that the peculiar character of their machinery — in em- 
ploying an uneducated ministry— has enabled them to 
be first upon the common missionary ground of the 
christian churches in America. There is a charm in 
this of which the Christian people in the mother coun- 
try can have no conception ; no other Christian deno- 
mination, I mean where religion is free, can ever have 
such a hold on the affections of the dweller in the wil- 
derness as the one that has first found him out. 
Whether this fact does not suggest the propriety of 
some change in the principles and procedure of cer- 
tain churches in their missionary operations in certain 
states of society, I leave it to the reader to determine. 
At all events, if it is the object of the Church of Christ, 
not so much to raise up a learned clergy as a Chris- 
tian people, it is obvious that the way in which this 
object can be accomplished the most extensively and 
the most effectually, must necessarily be the best. 

But the American Methodists and Baptists have no 
prejudice against education in their clergy, in so far as 
I could learn. On the contrary, although they do not 
regard it as an indispensable qualification for the Chris- 
tian ministry, they regard it as highly desirable, and 
are actually making great efforts to obtain it for their 
future ministers. The Baptists have seven colleges for 
General Literature, Philosophy, and Science ; and six 
Theological Seminaries, or Divinity Colleges : the 
Methodists have eight colleges, in which they conjoin 
theological with general education. 

But there is another circumstance that has contri- 
buted very much to the success of these denominations, 
especially in the less cultivated portions of the Union. 
Their religion is very much a religion of excitement : 
and it has something for the eye and the ear, as well as 
for the understanding and affections. The ceremony of 
adult-baptism by immersion is a most imposing spec- 



346 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

tacle for a half-educated people, and much more so for 
a people who are not educated at all. The negroes, I 
was told, have the highest idea of its efficacy as a reli- 
gious rite, even when they understand its nature but 
very imperfectly, and attach as much importance to the 
opus operatum as the Roman Catholics do to the sacri- 
fice of the mass. And then the hearty co-operation of 
the congregation in the services of the Methodist com- 
munion ; the audible expressions of assent to the propo- 
sitions of the preacher, even before he has uttered 
them ; the sympathetic ejaculations of all kinds, and 
from all quarters, and the peculiar earnestness of the 
psalmody, loud, long, and frequent — all these circum- 
stances combined necessarily suggest the idea of "going 
ahead," as the Americans say, in religion, highly favour- 
able to the claims and progress of the denomination in 
a rude state of society. " As for an African Methodist 
Church," observed a Presbyterian clergyman in one of 
the Southern States, when I was alluding in conversa- 
tion to the peculiarities I have just mentioned, and the 
effect they were likely to have upon the coloured popu- 
lation, " as for an African Methodist church, it is a per- 
fect Bedlam ! " 

Making all due allowance, however, for a good deal 
of extravagance of the kind I have just described, there 
still remains a vast amount of real good, which has been 
effected by these denominations in the United States, 
and for which they have laid the whole Christian world 
under the highest obligations. I attended Divine ser- 
vice in a Baptist church at Boston, when the ordinance 
of baptism by immersion was publicly administered to 
about twenty adult persons, male and female, in suc- 
cession. The ceremony was not merely imposing, it 
was impressive ; and the preacher — a young man who 
had evidently received a superior education, and who 
spoke with great fluency and propriety — appeared to enter 
with all his heart and soul into the service ; having 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 847 

suitable remarks for the case of each catechumen as he 
presented himself for baptism, and seizing the right 
points for making an impression upon the surrounding 
people. Two of the new converts were a man and his 
wife, of respectable appearance, whom the preacher de- 
scribed as having " come from the mountains of Scot- 
land." I could not help thinking at the moment that 
they had, in all likelihood, grown up to manhood under 
that "form of sound words" which is so unexceptionable 
in itself, and yet so utterly inefficient in thousands of 
instances in my native land, but had been led at length, 
by the good hand of God, to America, to be there 
awakened out of their sleep of death, through the 
ministrations of men who had not only " the form of 
godliness, but the power" also. There was, no doubt, 
a great deal too much stress laid upon the opus ope- 
ration, as if the person baptized had necessarily bid 
adieu to the world, and was necessarily on his way to 
heaven, and as if all who had not submitted to the 
operation were necessarily left behind ; but there was 
evidently an under-current of' genuine piety, far more 
than sufficient to atone for this froth upon the surface. 
There is a small class of Baptists in America holding 
Antinomian principles, and styled in the South Hard-shell 
Baptists. Two of the four congregations in Baltimore 
are of this class. It has also been found, not unfre- 
quently, especially in the Southern States, that the 
ceremony of bidding adieu to the world in the ordinance 
of baptism by immersion, is just as ineffectual a gua- 
rantee for purity of morals, as the modes of admission 
into the Christian church practised in other communi- 
ons. I have mentioned elsewhere that the people who 
call themselves " Christians," by way of distinction, 
in Boston and Philadelphia, are merely Unitarian Bap- 
tists. Still, however, there is abundant reason to be- 
lieve that the great majority of professing Christians of 



348 A SKETCH OP THE PRINCIPAL 

this denomination in America consists of persons of 
thoroughly evangelical sentiments, and of a correspond- 
ing practice. If their services in the cause of missions 
can be taken as a test of their Christian standing, it 
must be admitted that they occupy the first rank. 

I attended a Sabbath evening service in a Methodist 
church in Wilmington, North Carolina. The congre- 
gation was of a humbler class generally than that of 
the Methodist Church I attended on a week-day 
evening in Baltimore, and the gallery was quite filled 
with negroes. The sermon was a good practical dis- 
course on the text, " Buy the truth, and sell it not," 
with a sufficient admixture of the peculiar leaven of 
the Wesleyan theology. At the close of the service 
the negroes in the gallery struck up a hymn, in which 
the Christian life was described, under the figure of a 
voyage — the world being the sea; " the old ship of Zion," 
or the church, the vessel ; Christ the captain, and heaven 
the port. The poetry was certainly by no means ex- 
quisite ; but it was at least suited to the comprehen- 
sion of those for whom it was designed, and they ac- 
cordingly appeared to enter into the sentiments of the 
piece, with all their heart and soul. Indeed, the rich 
bass voices of the males, and the fine shrill treble of the 
women and children — who had all been well trained to 
sing in parts — formed a harmony truly delightful. Con- 
sidering the condition of the persons who were thus 
engaged — ail of them slaves, and yet all rejoicing in 
the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free — it 
was the most deeply affecting scene I witnessed in 
America. 

The Methodist churches in the United States are all 
free ; there are no private pews, and no pew-rents. 
The rich and the poor, consequently, meet together in 
their churches, on terms of perfect equality. The fe- 
males occupy the body of the church, and the males 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 349 

the aisles. Every member has certain weekly, monthly, 
and quarterly contributions to make to the funds of the 
Society ; from which the salaries of the ministers, and the 
other necessary expenses of divine worship are defrayed 
in the first instance, the remainder being appropriated 
to the general objects of benevolence supported by the 
whole denomination. The Methodist clergy, I was 
told, are the best paid, as a body, in the United States, 
and this has doubtless had its influence in contributing 
towards their success as a denomination. A certain 
sum, duly proportioned to the comparative expensive- 
ness of living in each particular locality, is allowed in 
the first instance as board-wages for the minister's 
family ; children and servants, house-rent, and the 
maintenance of a riding-horse, being all included. In 
addition to this amount, the minister is allowed 100 
dollars for himself, an equal amount for his wife, and 
from fourteen to twenty dollars for each child of his 
family, according to their ages. Each minister is an 
Agent of the Methodist Book Concern, an establishment 
supported by the whole denomination, for the circula- 
tion of useful religious publications ; and if the other 
sources of revenue are insufficient, as is often the case 
in weak congregations, to meet the amount required for 
the minister's salary and the other expenses of divine 
worship, the revenue arising from this particular source 
is made available to supply the deficiency. It thus 
happens, as it did in another well-known case, that 
" they who gather much have nothing over ; while 
they who gather little have no lack." 

Indeed, it must be acknowledged that the Methodists 
understand the whole system of finance much better 
than any other Protestant communion ; and it would 
doubtless be well for other Christian denominations to 
follow their example in this respect. 

The American Methodists are under a species of 
Episcopal government. They have six bishops, who 

2 H 



350 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

derive their apostolical succession from the Apostle 

John Wesley. It is certainly as respectable a descent 

as that of those who derive theirs from Pope John 
XXII. and others of the same stamp. These bishops 
have no particular dioceses, but travel all over the Union 
wherever their services are required. 

Singular as the coincidence may appear to some, the 
Methodists and the Roman Catholics are the only re- 
ligious denominations in America, whose system of 
church government is diametrically opposed to that of 
the Primitive church, in the two important particulars 
of a popular election of the clergy, and the participa- 
tion of the laity in the government of the church. 
Their form of church-government is an irresponsible 
Venetian oligarchy ; over whose movements the subject 
people have no control, and from whose decisions they 
have no appeal. It is inconceivable that such a system 
of church-government should continue to subsist in 
such a country as America, without producing much 
impatience under the yoke. Among the more intelli- 
gent members of the body this feeling is generally pre- 
valent ; but such persons constitute but a very small 
minority of the Methodist body, and the influence which 
" the powers that be" have the means of exerting over 
the dead-weight, or rudis indigestaque moles of which it 
principally consists, keeps them sufficiently in check. 
There can be no question, however, but that as intelli- 
gence advances in the body generally, there must either 
be an infusion of something like popular management 
into the system, or a general explosion. There have 
occasionally been indications of something of this kind 
already. 

The Episcopal Church is the smallest of the four lead- 
ing communions of the United States. In the estimation 
of Captain Marryat, " it is small in proportion to the 
others ; and although it may increase its members with 
the increase of population, it is not likely to make any 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 351 

vigorous or successful stand against the other sects." * 
This is certainly a remarkable result, considering that 
for upwards of a century and a half before the Revolu- 
tion, the Episcopal Church had been the Established 
Church of Virginia, and that in certain of the other 
States, as in both the Carolinas, Maryland, and New York, 
the whole influence and patronage of the Government 
had been employed in its behalf. In short, nothing 
more strongly demonstrates the thoroughly anti-christian 
character of the policy of forcing a Church into exist- 
ence in any country, or even of supporting a church in 
any country, with the mere influence and patronage of 
the State, than the fact that after a hundred and fifty 
years of exclusive State patronage and support, the 
whole fabric of the Episcopal Church in America was 
virtually annihilated at the first roll of the revolutionary 
drum.f " The rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house ; and it 
fell, and great was the fall of it." It was not built upon 
the rock of popular esteem, but upon the quicksand of 
State-patronage ; and therefore it fell. 

The late Bishop White of Pennsylvania, a man 
universally esteemed in the United States, was, in 
reality, the Father of the Episcopal Church in America ; 
for it was a new fabric that was reared after the Revo- 
lution, and not the old one repaired. Why, then, has 
the success of this Church been so limited even under 
its new constitution, in comparison with that of other 
Protestant denominations in the Union ? Why, simply 
because its foundation has still been in great measure 
as unscriptural as ever. The doctrines that were almost 
exclusively prevalent till a comparatively recent period 
in the American Episcopal Church, were the High 

* Marryat's Diary, Amer. edit. p. 205. 

t The late Bishop White of Philadelphia was for three years at 
this period the only Episcopal clergyman in the great State of 
Pennsylvania. 



352 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

Church and semi-popish doctrines of the apostolical 
succession, baptismal regeneration, the intrinsic efficacy 
of the opus operatum, &c. ; and these doctrines, I am 
sorry to add, are still held by at least four-sevenths of 
the American Episcopal Clergy. " When the Gospel 
-is proclaimed," says the late Bishop Hobart of New- 
York, a divine of this school, in his " Companion to the 
Altar," " communion with the Church by participation 
of its ordinances, at the hands of the duly authorized 
priesthood, is the indispensable condition of salvation" 
"Episcopalians," says the late Bishop Ravenscroft of 
South Carolina, in his " Doctrines of the Church Vindi- 
cated," " consider the grace and mercy of the gospel as 
matters of strict covenant stipulation ; as bound up with 
the authority to dispense them; as inseparable from 
that authority, and only by virtue of that authority, 
(with reverence be it spoken) pledging the glorious 
source of all mercy and grace to his creatures" And 
again : — " The authority of Christ is the only warrant 
to act in his name ; and succession from his apostles the 
only satisfactory evidence, that any man or body of men 
are possessed of this warrant. The ministry of the 
Church is a substitution for the Lord Jesus Christ in 
person." And again : — " When you baptize, do you 
not profess to bring an alien into covenant with God, 
and seal him to the day of redemption ? When you 
administer the Lord's supper, do you not negotiate afresh 
the pardon of the penitent, and replenish and confirm 
the grace of worthy partakers ? When you visit the 
sick and dying, are not the consolations of religion at 
your disposal, according to the circumstances of the 
case ?" Such is the burden of their song!* 

* The late Bishop Ravenscroft's general style of preaching was, 
that "we are justified by baptism, and sanctified by confirmation; that 
salvation out of the Episcopal Church is hopeless, but that when we 
are once in that Church we are safe. Baptism," the Bishop cer- 
tainly allowed, " would not save a man of itself, without the inward 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 353 

Now, it is quite impossible that any church should 
prosper while its ministers promulgate such doctrines as 
these. We find, accordingly, that, wherever the Ame- 
rican Episcopal church exhibits this peculiar form, it 
makes no impression on the community ; its congrega- 
tions are thin, and consist chiefly of persons of a certain 
class in society, who, finding they must attach them- 
selves to some church, either as a salvo to their con- 
sciences or to save appearances, naturally prefer the 
one that tolerates the utmost conformity to the world, 
and savours the least of what such men call fanaticism 
in religion. The churches of this communion are, 
therefore, confined chiefly to the cities where persons 
of the class alluded to are in greatest number ; its con- 
gregations in the interior of the country being, for the 
most part, small, few, and far between. 

Including the Missionary Bishops, who are sent out 
by the Episcopal church to itinerate in the new States, 
and are supported from the General Missionary Funds 
of the body, there are fifteen bishops, altogether, in the 
American Episcopal church ; the number of the clergy 
being 849, and of their churches 950. The following 
is a list of the dioceses, with the number of ministers 
in each : — ■ 



Dioceses. 




Number of Ministers 


Eastern District* 


. 86 


Vermont 


» • 


. 19 


Connecticut 


, . 


. 71 


New York 


. . 


. 224 


New Jersey 


» • 


. 32 



and spiritual grace ; but then that grace was the never-failing and 
necessary accompaniment of baptism, when duly administered, that 
is, by a clergyman episcopally ordained." 

* This diocese comprises the States of Maine (7) ; New Hamp- 
shire (6); Massachusetts (53); and Rhode Island (20). The 
bishop is Dr. Griswold, whom I have had occasion to mention 
already. 

2 h 2 



354 



SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 



Dioceses. 




Number of Ministers 


Pennsylvania . . . . .85 


Maryland 






. 67 


Virginia . 






. 73 


North Carolina 






. 20 


South Carolina 






. 46 


Tennessee 






. 10 


Kentucky 






. 20 


Ohio 






47 


Illinois 






7 


Indiana and Missouri 






20 


Michigan 






10 



Besides these ministers, there are also in the under- 
mentioned States and Territories, which have not yet 
been constituted dioceses, the following ministers, who 
are respectively considered as being under the Episcopal 
jurisdiction of the nearest bishop : — 

Ministers. 



Delaware . 


« . » 


. 7 


Georgia 


• • . 


. 6 


Alabama 


• * • 


. 7 


Mississippi 


• • • 


. 3 


Louisiana 


• • • 


. 4 


Florida 


• • « 


. 4 


Wisconsin 


• • • 


. 1 



The late Dr. Bedell, of Philadelphia, a man of de- 
cidedly evangelical sentiments, and of great piety and 
zeal, was eminently instrumental in effecting an im- 
portant change in a portion, at least, of the American 
Episcopal church. This change is, perhaps, most re- 
markably apparent in the city of Philadelphia, and is 
evinced in a striking manner in the missionary efforts 
of that portion of the American Protestant church. 
One-half of the bishops, including, of course, the Mis- 
sionary Bishops, and about three-sevenths of the clergy, 
are now decidedly evangelical. The evangelical party 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 355 

have also been increasing, of late, in the South ; for, 
on the occasion of the election of a bishop of South 
Carolina, a few months ago, they lost the election only 
by a single vote. 

The Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Philadelphia, one of the 
most distinguished of the Episcopal clergy in the 
United States, was himself brought to the saving know- 
ledge of the truth under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. 
Spring, one of the Presbyterian clergy of New York. 
Immediately thereafter, he devoted himself to the work 
of the ministry in the Episcopal church, to which his 
family belonged, in the State of Connecticut; and his 
subsequent labours, both in the pulpit and the press, 
have been eminently conducive to the advancement of 
pure and undefiled religion in his native land. 

On the occasion on which I had the pleasure of 
attending divine service in Dr. Tyng's church, the 
subject of his discourse was these words of our blessed 
Lord, John xvii. 16 : "Ye have not chosen me, but I 
have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go 
and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." 
In the outset of his sermon, as well as in the course of 
it, Dr. T. informed his congregation, that he had no 
intention of preaching a sermon on the doctrine of 
election. He was doing it all the while, however ; 
but in the way so judiciously recommended by the 
venerable John Newton, which, however, it is not ne- 
cessary to particularize. 

The natural advantages, Dr. Tyng observed, which 
we enjoy by our birth, and as members of civilized 
society, are, clearly and unquestionably, the result of 
God's appointment, and not of our own choice. It 
could be no matter of choice with us that we were 
born, not in a land of tyranny and despotism, but in a 
land of liberty, under institutions so favourable for the 
development of all our powers, both of body and mind, 
as well as for the pursuit and attainment of true hap 



356 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

piness. All this was, evidently, the result of God's 
choice, and not of our own. 

But, our spiritual advantages, Dr. T. proceeded to 
observe, were equally the result of the divine choice 
and appointment. It had been no matter of choice 
with us whether our lot should be cast in a land of 
gospel light and Christian privileges, or in a land of 
darkness, deep and dismal as the shadow of death, where 
we should, in all likelihood, have been the worshippers 
of idols, or the miserable victims of Mahomedan delu- 
sion. All this was clearly and unquestionably the 
result of the divine choice and appointment, and not of 
our own. 

Then addressing himself to those of his congregation 
who had been divinely brought to a saving knowledge of 
the blessed truths of the gospel, Dr. T. appealed to them 
as to whether any of them could testify that they had 
sought the Lord with full purpose of heart before He 
sought after them — whether they could recollect a 
period in their past history when they were diligently 
engaged in seeking after God, and happiness, and heaven, 
while God was eluding their search, and refusing to be 
found of them — whether it was not rather when they 
were going astray from God and from the ways of holi- 
ness, when they were eagerly pursuing the downward 
course of folly, sin, and death, that the Lord mercifully 
arrested them in their progress, and turned their feet 
into the way of peace. There was still, therefore, the 
same evidence of the divine choice and appointment in 
this instance as before. 

In the close of his discourse Dr. Tyng reminded his 
hearers that the object of this divine choice and ap- 
pointment was, that all who were its subjects should 
bring forth fruit unto holiness, and that that fruit should 
be permanent ; and concluded with an affectionate appeal 
to the Christian sympathies of his people on behalf of 
the heathen, whom, he reminded them, they were leaving 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 357 

uncared for, as a Christian church, till their church-edi- 
fice should be free from debt — a state of things which 
it was impossible for a Christian man to think of without 
pain. 

In short, Dr. Tyng's discourse, of which I have only- 
given a faint outline, was unquestionably of a superior 
order ; and I have no doubt that, if the American Epis- 
copal Church had generally men of a character and 
spirit at all resembling Dr. Tyng's in the office of the 
ministry, it would not continue to lag behind the other 
evangelical communions of the country. But Epis- 
copacy has hitherto lain under suspicion, on the part of 
American Christians generally, not so much on account 
of its form of government, which, I have already shown, 
has been brought down in great measure to the primitive 
and republican type, as to the anti-scriptural and semi- 
popish doctrines it has heretofore endeavoured to pro- 
mulgate. The differences in point of doctrine in the 
Presbyterian church are mere trifles, compared with those 
that divide the Episcopal clergy in America. In the 
former case there is a virtual agreement on essentials ; 
in the latter, it is the fundamentals of Christianity that 
are in question — the ground of a sinner's acceptance 
with God, and the efficient cause of his justification. 
Outward union in such circumstances is surely not that 
unity which Christianity enjoins : for how can two walk 
together except they be agreed on such points as these ? 
The State of New York, in which upwards of one- 
fourth of the whole number of the American Episcopal 
clergy are settled, has hitherto been the nursery and 
stronghold of High Church principles in the United 
States. The Theological Seminary of the Episcopal 
church in the city of New York is at present exclu- 
sively in the hands of divines of this stamp ; and the 
students, I was credibly informed, are Puseyists, to a 
man. The sentiments of the late Bishop Hobart, of 
New York, are sufficiently evident from the extract 



358 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

I have already given from his " Companion to the 
Altar ;" and a zealot of this school, the Rev. Evan 
Johnson, of the city of Brooklyn, New York, after in- 
forming his people, in a recently-printed sermon,* that 
he nowhere " finds that any great blessing has ever 
attended the exertions of separatists and schismatics," 
meaning the whole category of non-episcopal Protest- 
ants, issues his sentence of condemnation even against 
the American Episcopal missions in Greece and France, 
u because of the schismatical efforts of our clergy, who 
have gone from hence into the dioceses of the Greek 
and Roman churches without their consent, and, in 
many cases, in most express opposition to their will ! " 
It certainly would be an act of courtesy, on the part of 
Protestants, to ask permission of the Pope and the 
Greek Patriarch to enter their dioceses! 

If the reader should think it strange, however, that 
theology of this kind should, nevertheless, have had 
vigour enough to effect the establishment of upwards 
of 200 churches in the State of New York, I must 
inform him that the establishment of these churches is 
to be ascribed, in great measure, to a totally different 
cause. Within thirty years after the conquest of the 
Dutch colony of New York, in the year 1664, the Rev. 
Mr. Vesey, the first Episcopal minister in that colony, 
and a missionary of the Venerable Society for the Pro- 
pagation of the Gospel, married the widow of a Dutch 
clergyman of New York, who died in possession of a 
farm of 400 acres, situated near the original Dutch town. 
This farm passed, successively, first, into the hands of 
the widow ; then into those of her second husband, the 
Rev. Mr. Vesey ; and finally into those of the Corpora- 
tion of Trinity Church, in New York. By what right 
these successive transfers were made, is a question 
for lawyers to decide ; but the general impression in 

* Missionary Failures the Reason for Renovated Exertion. A 
Sermon, by Rev. Evan M. Johnson, Brooklyn, New York. 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 359 

New York is, that the Episcopal church had originally 
no valid title to the property, and has none still. At 
all events, the descendants of the Dutch clergyman 
have repeatedly endeavoured to establish their claim to 
it ; but hitherto without success, chiefly through the 
influence which the Corporation derives from possessing 
it. 

The property in question has long been within the 
limits of the modern city of New York ; and, being 
leased out in building allotments, it produces a large 
annual revenue to the Corporation. A gentleman of 
Dutch origin, residing in New York, gave me the following 
estimate of its present value ; adding, however, that a 
considerable portion of it is leased at a very low annual 
rent. At sixteen lots per acre, the whole property 
forms 6400 lots ; which, at 10,000 dollars per lot, are 
worth 64,000,000 dollars ; or, at an annual rental of 150 
dollars per lot, which, my informant told me, was a low 
estimate, nearly a million of dollars, or £2 1 2,500 sterling, 
per annum. The actual revenue is, however, consider- 
ably under this amount ; for, conscious of the insuffi- 
ciency of their title, the Corporation have, from time to 
time, employed a portion of the property to stop the 
mouths of murmurers, by resorting to Captain Marryat's 
aristocratic expedient of " bribery and corruption." 
About the year 1795, the notorious Aaron Burr, after- 
wards Vice-President of the United States, having 
threatened to institute a process for investigating the 
validity of the title to the Corporation property, the 
Corporation offered him, as hush-money, a hundred 
years' lease of an eight-acre allotment, situated in 
Broadway, with a fine house upon it, for a mere trifle ; 
and the worthless patriot, forsooth, accepted the bribe. 
Within three years thereafter, he sold the lease for 
85,000 dollars, to Mr. Jacob Astor, of New York.* 

* Mr. Astor, the wealthiest citizen of the American Republic, 
arrived in New York, as a poor German adventurer, about forty 



360 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

The possession of the property of the Trinity Church 
Corporation is the whole secret of the present standing 
of the Episcopal Church in the State of New York ; for 
wherever there are a few Episcopalians, in any part of 
the State, a petition is forthwith got up, to the Corpora- 
tion, for a grant of money for the erection of a church ; 
and in this way churches are not only erected, but en- 
dowed, almost exclusively by the Corporation. If all 
this were done for the advancement of genuine Christ- 
ianity, there would be less reason to complain, although 
the whole affair is directly opposed to the genius and 
spirit of the American Constitution ; but when the Cor- 
poration funds are employed, in reality, for the propa- 
gation of such a system of Popish Protestantism as that 
of the Rev. Evan Johnson and his numerous coadjutors, 
and for the consequent lowering of the standard of 
religion in the land, it becomes the bounden duty of 
every American patriot to have the matter fully inves- 
tigated, and the property secured to the right owners. 

The congregations of the High Church Episcopal 
clergy, both in New York and in the State generally, 
are very small ; and the standard of religion in these 
congregations is necessarily low. When persons of 
questionable character, of other denominations, recalci- 
trate against the stricter discipline of their own churches, 
and become Episcopalians, as is sometimes the case in 
America, as well as elsewhere, they generally become 
Christians of the highest caste in their new connexion 
— at least, in comparison with their new associates. 
The transition from the other communions to Evange- 
lical Episcopacy is much more rare, as the new convert 
finds himself in that case as awkwardly situated after 
the change as before. 

years ago. His occupation had been that of a furrier, in which ca- 
pacity he began business for himself, after having served for some 
time under a master in New York. He is now worth 20,000,000 
dollars — upwards of four millions sterling. 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 361 

It has been alleged, that the High Church party in 
the American Episcopal church would be quite willing 
to accept of an endowment from the State, as they feel 
the rottenness of the ground they stand on in regard to 
the people. This, however, is probably a calumny. 
At all events, the late Bishop Hobart, of New York, 
one of the most thorough-going High Churchmen of 
his communion, was, nevertheless, one of the most de- 
cided Voluntaries in America. Indeed, Bishop Hobart 
appears to have carried his Voluntaryism to an unne- 
cessary and extravagant length, as is evident from the 
following circumstance, in which I am sure very few Vo- 
luntaries in this country would approve of his procedure. 

On the death of Governor De Witt Clinton, of the 
State of New York, who died very suddenly, in the 
year 1828, a resolution of the City Corporation of New 
York was passed, to the following effect, viz. : — " That 
the reverend the clergy in the city, be respectfully re- 
quested to notice, in an appropriate and solemn manner, 
in their respective churches, to-morrow, the deep be- 
reavement sustained by our common country, by the 
death of our Chief Magistrate and fellow-citizen De Witt 
Clinton." This resolution was forwarded by the Clerk 
of the Corporation to the clergy of the city ; and, as 
Mr. De Witt Clinton was not merely universally re- 
spected in the State of New York, but had been a most 
distinguished benefactor of the State, through the im- 
portant measures he had recommended and carried in 
the Legislature, I am sure it will be generally allowed 
that such a request was quite appropriate on the one 
hand, and ought to have been received in a correspond- 
ing spirit, by the clergy of all communions, on the 
other. Bishop Hobart, however, thought otherwise ; 
and, in a letter to the Clerk of the Corporation, in 
which he notified his refusal to comply with the re- 
quest of that body, he assigned the following as his 
reason : — 

2 I 



362 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

" The prostitution of religion to the purposes of 
secular policy has produced the greatest mischiefs ; 
and I conceive, that the studious separation of the 
Church from the State, which characterises our re- 
publican constitution, is designed to prevent religion 
and its ministers from being made subservient to the 
views of those who, from time to time, may administer 
public affairs ; but, if the civil or municipal authority 
may desire the clergy ■ to notice, in an appropriate and 
solemn manner,' the death of a Chief Magistrate of a 
State, the request may be extended to every distin- 
guished citizen who has filled a public station, and thus 
the ministrations of the clergy may be made to advance 
the influence of political men and political measures — 
an evil from which, in the Old World, the most un- 
happy effects have resulted, and against which, in this 
country, we should most sedulously guard." 

And again — 

" Paramount considerations of duty will prevent my 
compliance with a request, which, in the principle that 
it involves, and in the precedent which it will establish, 
appears to me of dangerous tendency in regard to the 
spirit of our free constitution, and to the spirit of 
religion, and the character and influence of its mi- 
nisters,"* 

* I have extracted these two paragraphs of Bishop Hobart's 
letter, from Stuart's " Three Years in America" — an able and ex- 
cellent work — in which I recollected having read it about six years 
ago. On referring to that work, I found that Mr. Stuart had in- 
serted the memorial presented to the House of Assembly of Vir- 
ginia, in the year 1784, petitioning against an assessment for the 
support of religion, and signed by ten thousand Virginians, to 
which I merely referred in Chapter III. I have, therefore, been 
under a mistake in supposing that the popular agitation in favour of 
the Voluntary System, in America, had entirely escaped the notice 
of English writers on that country. Mr. Stuart is surely in error, 
however, in ascribing the memorial in question to Mr. Madison ; 
for the original is still extant, in the handwriting of the Rev. J. B. 
Smith, who was also the writer of some of the other memorials I 
have inserted, and the principal promoter of the measure they ad- 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 363 

Perhaps Bishop Hobart might not have been so 
rampant a Voluntary if he had not been aware that he 
had the Trinity Church Corporation endowment to fall 
back upon. It is easy to talk about trusting to Provi- 
dence for one's daily bread, when his pockets are well 
lined. The Voluntary System requires the church to 
be thrown for its whole support upon the Christian 
people. It repudiates alike the principle of endow- 
ments, whether they be derived from the State treasury, 
or from the Trinity Church Corporation. 

I shall conclude this chapter by adverting to a charge 
which Captain Marryat advances against the Voluntary 
System in America. " The Voluntary System in 
America," observes this writer, " has broken one of the 
strongest links between man and man, for each goeth 
his own way ; as a nation there is no national feeling 
to be acted upon. Where any one is allowed to have 
his own peculiar way of thinking, his own peculiar 
creed, there neither is a watch, nor a right to watch, 
over each other ; there is no mutual communication, 
no encouragement, no parental control ; and the conse- 
quence is, that by the majority, especially the young, 
religion becomes wholly and utterly disregarded."* 

Now, I have no hesitation in characterising the 
whole of this statement as a gross misrepresentation of 
the real state of things in America. The instances in 
which the different members of the same family are 
members of different communions are but few in num- 
ber, even in America, in comparison with those in which 
they all go one way. But even in these instances, as 
the protestant communions of the United States are 

vocated. Mr. Stuart was, unacquainted, moreover, with the cir- 
cumstances out of which the memorial in question had arisen, and 
especially with the fact of its having merely been one of a series of 
memorials on the same subject, all originating in the self-denying 
and patriotic efforts of the Presbyterian clergy of Virginia. 
* Diary in America, part i. Amer. edit, page 203. 



364 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

almost universally of evangelical sentiments, the peace 
of families is rarely interrupted, in consequence of the 
tolerant principles of American society. At Wilming- 
ton, in North Carolina, I enjoyed the hospitality of a 
family of which the head, who was then deceased, had 
been a Quaker. He had left two sons and two daugh- 
ters ; and one of the sons and one of the daughters were 
members of the Episcopal church in Wilmington, while 
the other son and daughter were Presbyterians. But 
so far was this circumstance from disturbing the peace 
of the family, that each appeared to feel interested in 
hearing of the prosperity of the church to which the 
others belonged. 

Again, I am confident there is no country in Europe 
in which the national feeling is half so strong as it is in 
America. And why should it be otherwise ? Mere 
Pariahs, or outcasts from society, as the lower orders in 
this country virtually are, having no political existence in 
the eye of the State, proscribed by " their betters," and 
made to feel that poverty is not only bitter, but disgrace- 
ful — how can national feeling or patriotism spring up in 
so ungenial a soil ? The briers and thorns of Chartism 
and Socialism are its natural productions. But the 
poorest American has his rights and privileges as well 
as the wealthiest in the land ; and it is natural, there- 
fore, that he should love the country that secures and 
protects them. The State has watched over him in 
his youth, and not only given him an education to fit 
him for a vigorous manhood, but thrown open to him 
every avenue to honour and preferment ; it is natural, 
therefore, that he should love his country, which secures 
to him advantages which he would look for in vain in 
any other. 

As to the youth of America being generally irreligious, 
the charge is utterly unfounded. There is no Euro- 
pean nation in which greater efforts are made than in 
America for the promotion of morality and religion 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 365 

among the youth of the country ; and I am sure there 
is none in which such efforts are more successful. 

The very division of the great American community 
into different religious denominations, so far from being 
an unmixed evil, as it is generally represented, is, on 
the contrary, one of the happiest circumstances for the 
country, whether in regard to the preservation of its 
civil liberty, or its moral and religious advancement. 
Nay, there is nothing that would more certainly prove 
injurious to civil liberty and religion in the United 
States than the universal prevalence of any one religious 
denomination. Before the recent division of the Gene- 
ral Assembly of the American Presbyterian Church, that 
body possessed an overwhelming influence throughout 
the country ; and its leading men were so conscious of 
the fact that they were actually beginning to turn it to 
account, by passing resolutions of which the object was 
to guide the Christian people in voting for members of 
Congress, in the way of recommending that they should 
vote for " none but religious men." It is easy to see 
to what such recommendations might have led in cer- 
tain circumstances ; and people were accordingly be- 
ginning to take alarm, when the Assembly, fortunately 
for the Presbyterian church as well as for the country, 
broke in two. When P. R. Livingston, Esq. was a 
candidate for the National Congress, (for the State of 
Pennsylvania, if I am not mistaken,) he was accosted by 
a Methodist preacher of his acquaintance, who con- 
gratulated him on his prospects of success. Mr. L. 
hinted that these were not very favourable, as the other 
candidate, a Mr. Bouchette, was likely to carry the 
election. " What ! that blue-skin Presbyterian ?" said 
the Methodist, " he will never do any thing for us if he 
gets in. But how comes it, Mr. Livingston, that there 
has never been a Methodist preacher elected chaplain 
to Congress?" "Indeed," replied Mr. L. getting his 
cue immediately, " is that really the fact ? Why, it 

2 i 2 



366 SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPAL 

never struck me before : it ought to be looked into ; in- 
deed it ought." This was enough ; the Methodist 
preacher was a man of some influence in his denomina- 
tion, and the prospect of having a member of Congress 
who would advocate their claims to the same distinction 
as other religious denominations had enjoyed, secured 
for Mr. Livingston all the Methodist votes, in addition 
to those he had had before, and enabled him to carry 
the election. When a Baptist preacher, however, pre- 
suming on the number and influence of the Baptists in 
one of the Western States, proposed himself either as 
governor of the State or as member of Congress, his 
own denomination, perceiving the incongruity of the 
thing, set their faces against him. In short, although 
Church and State are separated in the United States, 
it is nevertheless the fact, that the Church has a still 
more direct and powerful influence upon the State in 
America than it has even in England. In such cir- 
cumstances, it is evidently desirable for both Church 
and State that there should be a balance of power pre- 
served throughout the Union, and that no one denomi- 
nation should absorb all the rest. 

According to the American Almanac for 1840 the 
whole number of the ministers of religion, of all deno- 
minations, in the United States, amounts to 15,763. 
From my own knowledge, however, as to particular 
denominations, I have reason to believe that this state- 
ment is considerably under the truth ; and that, taking 
into account those really efficient bodies of men, 
the local preachers of the Methodists, the preaching 
elders of the Baptists, and the evangelists of other 
denominations, the whole number of men employed at 
this moment throughout the United States, in preaching 
the gospel, is not fewer than 20,000. This, however, 
is not my estimate, but that of the Rev. Dr. Robert 
Breckinridge, of Baltimore. This number, for a popu- 
lation of 17,500,000, the estimated amount of the 



RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS. 367 

whole population of the United States at the present 
moment, would give one preacher for every 875 persons 
in the Union ; but taking the number of ministers of 
religion even at 15,000, which is certainly under the 
truth, the proportion is one minister for every 1166 
persons in the United States. This is surely no scanty 
allowance for the Voluntary System. It must be con- 
fessed, indeed, that the proportion of these ministers in 
the Far West is still much too scanty for the thinly 
scattered population ; but what established Church, I 
ask, in Christendom, could make adequate provision for 
the religious instruction of not fewer than five millions 
of people rising up, as if from the earth, in the course 
of a single life-time, over a country as extensive as the 
half of all Europe ? In such circumstances the wonder 
is not that so little, but that so much, has been already 
accomplished. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, President of New Jersey 
College during the first American war, observes in the 
Preface to his Characteristics — a work which was written 
about seventy years after the Revolution of 1688, and 
was intended as a picture of the church in North 
Britain in the middle of last century — that there is no 
instance in the history of the Christian church since the 
apostolic age, in which it ever enjoyed so long a period 
as seventy years of outward peace, without becoming 
either exceedingly corrupt on the one hand, or heretical 
on the other. It is not my intention to inquire whether 
the additional period of seventy years of outward 
peace, which the British churches have experienced 
since the days of Dr. Witherspoon, has either increased 
or diminished their corruption ; although it must be 
confessed that the feeling of satisfaction with their own 
condition, which universally pervades the British 
churches of the present day, and is uniformly exhibited 
at all Religious Meetings, whether of Churchmen or 
Dissenters, is but a questionable indication of their real 
state, and has something in it of a Laodicean aspect. 

After the famous revival in New England, so minutely 
described by the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, there 
appears to have been a strong re-action in that part of 
America, accompanied with a gradual relaxation of the 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 369 

ancient discipline of the Puritans.* The Revolutionary- 
War succeeded, opening the way for the influx of 
French men and French principles into the United 
States ; and the preaching of the celebrated Dr. Priest- 
ley, at Philadelphia, at length planted Unitarianism in 
the Middle States of America. The congregation 
formed by Dr. Priestley was small, and consisted chiefly 
of literary men and philosophers ; and it is a singular 
fact, that it has never increased much beyond its original 
number to the present day. I have already observed 
that the King's Chapel, an Episcopal Church in Boston, 
was the first church of any communion that openly 
avowed Unitarianism in the United States. This event 
took place in the year 1785, immediately after the War. 
The heresy was in the meantime taking root in various 
quarters, and particularly in Harvard University, which 
was then the principal college both for general literature 
and for divinity in New England. The fountain being 
thus poisoned, it was a necessary consequence that the 
streams it supplied should diffuse that poison over the 
land ; and we find accordingly that it was principally in 
the State of Massachusetts, in which Harvard Univer- 
sity is situated, and of which the clergy were almost 
universally educated in that Institution, that the heresy- 
was diffused. 

As water may be cooled down in a still atmosphere 
many degrees below the freezing point before it passes 
into the state of ice, so may Christian theology be gra- 
dually cooled down, in a peaceful and undisturbed state 
of the Christian church, many degrees below the 
freezing point, before it becomes congealed into the 
solid ice of Unitarianism. The first appointment in 

* In the churches of Salem — one of the present strongholds of 
Unitarianism in America — an arrangement, significantly designated 
The Half-way Covenant, was introduced before the middle of last 
century, by which church-privileges were granted to those who were 
unwilling to go the wliole way of the old discipline. 



370 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the University of Harvard that aroused the attention of 
the Christian public in New England, was that of the 
Rev. Dr. Ware to the professorship of divinity, in the 
year 1804. On that occasion, the late Rev. Jedidiah 
Morse, D.D., a distinguished New England clergyman 
of his day, and the author of several literary works of 
merit, broadly accused Dr. Ware of holding heretical 
opinions relative to the person and office of Christ, and 
accordingly reprobated his appointment in the strongest 
terms. This charge was indignantly repelled by the 
Unitarians of the day as a slanderous and most un- 
founded accusation ; the orthodox Trinitarian standards, 
which Dr. Ware and all the rest of them had signed, 
were triumphantly appealed to as a convincing proof of 
their soundness in the faith — for it is a grand absurdity 
to suppose that the mere orthodoxy of its standards can 
preserve a church from heresy — and the hue and cry 
of bigotry, fanaticism, and persecution was raised against 
Dr. Morse, and proved successful for the time in putting 
him down. 

It will, doubtless, be alleged, that it is a serious charge 
to prefer against Dr. Ware and his coadjutors, that they 
had been guilty of subscribing articles of faith which 
they did not believe. But as the modern Unitarians 
of the United States claim Dr. Ware and his brethren, 
and various others who had gone before them in Harvard 
University, as the apostles and patriarchs of Unitarian- 
ism in America, I merely receive the fact on their au- 
thority ; believing they are perfectly in the right in the 
catalogue they give of their worthies, and leaving it 
with themselves to reconcile this fact as they best can 
with the solemn professions and reiterated subscriptions 
of Dr. Ware and his brethren. In short, the whole 
history of Unitarianism in America is a history of in- 
trigue and concealment ; the Unitarian minister never 
spoke out till, by gradually cooling down the theology 
of his church to the freezing point, he had gained over 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 371 

a majority of the congregation to his views, and was 
sure, at least, of his personal safety. Unitarians are 
not the men either to court or to stand persecution 
for conscience' sake ! 

It was precisely in this way that Unitarianism was 
originally planted in the city of Charleston. The con- 
gregation of the church in which it first appeared in that 
city, consisted chiefly of New Englanders from Massa- 
chusetts ; the minister was a New England clergyman 
from Harvard College ; the plot was gradually matured 
through the propagation of a diluted form of Christianity 
that repelled pious persons from the church, and when 
a decided majority of the congregation that remained 
was thus secured, the curtain was drawn up, and the 
dramatis persona exhibited in the character of Unita- 
rians. 

During divine service, which I attended, in the Rev. 
Mr. Pierpont's (Unitarian) church, in the city of Boston, 
I was struck on observing that the Psalmody of the 
church consisted of hymns by such unexceptionable 
writers of devotional poetry as Cowper, Watts, Newton, 
Wesley, Logan, &c. ; the name of the author of each 
hymn being printed in capital letters at the close 
of it. I looked hastily at the commencement of several 
of the hymns with which I happened to be well ac- 
quainted, and finding that all was right, I confess I was 
more than astonished. Observing, however, that there 
was a preface of several pages in length prefixed to the 
hymns, I glanced rapidly over it, and found a paragraph 
nearly at the close of it, in which the Rev. Editors — 
for it had been a joint-stock compilation — informed 
their readers that they had in every case scrupulously 
given the exact words of the real authors of the hymns, 
but that wherever the sentiments expressed were such 
as enlightened Christians could not receive, they had 
simply preferred leaving the passage out, to any other 
method of treating it. On looking at the hymns a 



372 UN1TARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

second time, I found, accordingly, that they had been 
completely exenterated ; every thing that savoured of 
the divinity of Christ, the entire depravity of man, the 
atonement, justification by faith alone, regeneration, and 
the influences of the Holy Spirit, being scrupulously ex- 
cluded, and nothing but the bare bones and integuments 
of natural religion left behind. Now, I cannot help 
thinking that there is a species of dishonesty in all this ; 
for as not one in a hundred of the persons who use the 
hymns will ever think of reading the small type preface, 
they will be led to believe that the religion they are 
taught in their books of devotion, is precisely the same 
as that of the eminent men whose names I have enu- 
merated. In short, the compilers " tell the truth," but 
not " the whole truth ;" and if the concealment or 
suppressio veri they practise is not tantamount to false- 
hood, it has at least something of the essence and 
character of moral obliquity. 

It is uncertain how long the process I have described 
might have gone on, and how extensively it might have 
shed its withering and blasting influence over the 
churches of New England, had not the mistaken zeal 
of a late distinguished Unitarian minister in London 
brought the ulcer to a head, and caused its timely 
suppuration. The late Dr. Belsham, in his Life of 
Lindsey, a famous Unitarian preacher, published in the 
year 1815, dedicated a whole chapter of his work to 
the triumphs of Unitarianism in America. He had 
himself been in correspondence with the leading men of 
the body in New England for many years before, and 
was therefore well acquainted with the real facts of the 
case : but however gratifying these facts might have been 
to Unitarians in England, their disclosure in America 
was certainly a great mistake on the part of Dr. Bel- 
sham. As soon as the work reached the United States, 
the chapter on American Unitarianism was immediately 
re-pubiished by the orthodox party in New England ; 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 373 

the charge of Unitarianism was preferred broadly 
against a comparatively large number of the clergy of 
Massachusetts, and the public were appealed to as to 
whether the real state of the case could any longer be 
disavowed. 

These statements and charges brought out, as the 
apologist of his party, the celebrated Dr. Channing, who 
having then been himself recently ordained to the min- 
istry, on the Cambridge platform — a highly orthodox, or 
Trinitarian symbol — naturally felt uneasy under the com- 
pliments of Dr. Belsham. Dr. C. expressed his decided 
disapproval of Dr. Belsham's publication ; disclaimed the 
compliments he had passed on a large portion of the 
New England clergy, as being altogether such as him- 
self in religious sentiments ; and modestly expressed 
his opinion that the state of things in New England 
was greatly different from what Dr. Belsham had sup- 
posed. Dr. Channing's paper was immediately taken up 
and reviewed in an exceedingly able manner by the 
late Rev. Dr. Worcester, of Salem, — the father of the Rev. 
S. M. Worcester, A.M., now minister of the Tabernacle 
church in that city — who, although greatly inferior to 
Dr. Channing as a literary man and a man of talent, was 
as much his superior as a Christian divine. In the 
course of his review, Dr. Worcester demonstrated, to 
the satisfaction of all candid persons, that Dr. Belsham 
had not mistaken his men ; that there had long been a 
grievous apostasy from " the faith once delivered to the 
saints" in New England, and that a large proportion of 
the clergy of Massachusetts were downright Unitarians. 
Dr. Worcester's paper was unanswerable, and Dr. Chan- 
ning made no reply. The mask that had been worn so 
long had at length fallen off, and the Unitarians were 
thenceforth obliged to assume their proper designation, 
and to stand or fall by their own merits. 

Heresy has almost uniformly obtained admittance 
into the Christian church, as it unquestionably did in 

2k 



374 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

this instance, through the seats of learning ; for it has 
ever been the master-stroke of Satan's policy to poison 
the stream of Christian influence at its fountain-head. 
It would be difficult, however, to ascertain in whose per- 
son Unitarianism first obtained a footing in Harvard 
University, from which, as its grand source and centre, 
it spread so widely over the State of Massachusetts : it 
is certain, at all events, that Dr. Ware was not the first 
Socinian in that Institution. The Rev. Dr. Kirkland, 
who was elected President in 1810, was an avowed 
Unitarian ; and from that period there has been a con- 
stant struggle to preserve it exclusively in Unitarian 
hands. 

The prevalence of Unitarianism in America has 
often been triumphantly appealed to as an illustration 
of the antiscriptural character and the inefficiency of 
the Voluntary System. It is a singular fact, however, 
that the Voluntary System is in no respect chargeable 
with the rise and progress of that heresy in America : 
it arose, and spread, and prospered under the shelter of 
a powerful State-Establishment of religion ; and the 
Voluntary System is now recording its decline and fall. 

As Unitarianism prevailed chiefly among the wealthier 
classes of society in the commercial cities of Massachu- 
setts, which are all situated within a small distance of 
Harvard University, it soon acquired considerable influ- 
ence in the State Legislature ; and that influence was 
employed in the first instance, in common with the 
combined influence of the different denominations op- 
posed to the Congregational Establishment, in procuring 
a modification of the State-law for the support of that 
Establishment — in virtue of which any person disap- 
proving of " The Standing Order," as the Congrega- 
tional ministry were designated, was at liberty to sign 
off, as it was called, in favour of whatever other com- 
munion he might prefer ; the amount of his proportion 
of the tax for the support of religion, which was still 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 375 

imposed universally, being thenceforth appropriated to 
that communion. 

The law of 1811 was decidedly favourable to the 
Unitarians, especially after that body became a separate 
denomination ; for as the Standing Order were still the 
decided majority throughout the State, and as a consi- 
derable portion of the community were strongly op- 
posed to the tax for the support of religion altogether, 
many, who were of no religion, but were nevertheless 
obliged to pay the general tax for its support, signed off 
in favour of the Unitarians and other heretical denomi- 
nations, for the express purpose of annoying the Stand- 
ing Order as much as possible. In this way the State 
of Massachusetts became a perfect nursery and hot-bed 
of heresy for the whole Union : Unitarians, Universal- 
ists, Restorationists, Swedenborgians, &c. — being all 
State Churches, under a law that compelled every man 
to be of some religion, but left him entire freedom of 
choice — were all supported indiscriminately from the 
State treasury. 

This law, however, had an effect which was not anti- 
cipated by its Unitarian authors. For in all cases 
throughout the State in which the Unitarians were the 
majority in particular congregations, it enabled the 
orthodox portion of the congregation to sign off and 
form an orthodox church on the old basis, leaving the 
Unitarians in possession of the old church and endow- 
ments. The Unitarians did every thing in their power 
to prevent these divisions of congregations, as they had 
penetration enough to foresee their general tendency, 
but without avail ; the new churches having purged out 
the old leaven, and having the vigour of scriptural 
Christianity to support them, gradually waxed stronger 
and stronger, while the Unitarian as regularly declined. 

This state of things continued till the year 1830, 
when the general assessment for the support of religion 
was entirely abolished in the State of Massachusetts, 



376 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

and the last remnant of a civil establishment of religion 
annihilated in America. Since this period, Unitarianism 
has rapidly declined in the State of Massachusetts; 
and in not a few instances in which the Unitarian 
majority had enabled that denomination to retain the 
old church and the other property attached to it twenty- 
five years ago, the Unitarian minister is now left with 
little besides, and appears, in the midst of the solitude 
he has created, to resemble the domestic cat, that 
continues to haunt the old house after the family has 
gone. 

In short, since the mask was first torn off the visage 
of the Unitarians of New England by the Rev. Dr. 
Worcester in 1815, and especially since the abolition 
of the general assessment for the support of religion in 
1830, Unitarianism has been rapidly going down in the 
United States. At the former of these periods there 
were only two or three orthodox churches of the 
Standing Order in the city of Boston ; there are now 
at least thirteen, besides all the orthodox churches 
of other denominations. I have already detailed the 
procedure of the orthodox portion of the inhabitants of 
Massachusetts, when they found that Harvard Univer- 
sity had passed into the hands of the Unitarians. 
They withdrew their students of general literature and 
science, and sent them to Yale College in Connecticut; 
and they founded and endowed the Theological Semi- 
nary or Divinity College at Andover, some of whose 
professors have already attained to eminence, especially 
for their attainments in biblical literature, even in 
Europe. The Unitarians have recently been appre- 
hensive lest they should lose their hold even of 
Harvard College ; and as that Institution is now but 
little frequented by candidates for the ministry, they 
have endeavoured successfully to transform it into a 
school of law. Judge Story, one of the most distin- 
guished lawyers in the United States, is the Professor 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 877 

of Law in the University ; and the students of that 
Department already amount to 70. Exclusive of the 
students of law, those of general literature and science 
in Harvard University amounted, during the past year, 
to 237. In connexion with the University there is 
also a Theological Seminary or Divinity College for the 
Unitarians, well endowed by private benevolence ; but 
the difficulty of getting students to qualify for the 
Unitarian Church is so great, that one of the professors 
recently resigned his office — not because he had no 
salary, for his chair was well endowed, but because he 
had nothing to do. The number of divinity students 
is at present 20. 

The number of Unitarian churches in the United 
States is at present 200 ; the number of the ministers 
of that denomination being 1 74. Of these churches 
not fewer than 141 are situated in the States of 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, there being only a 
solitary one in that of Connecticut. In the States of 
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, the number is 
very small. There are a few in the western cities of 
the State of New York, and a few also in Ohio, where 
the country was extensively peopled by settlers from 
New England ; but in the great city of New York, the 
commercial capital of America, there are only two, and 
one of these is in a languishing condition. Dr. 
Priestley's society in Philadelphia I have already 
mentioned ; there has recently been another Unitarian 
church erected in that city, at the instance of immi- 
grants from Massachusetts. The Unitarian church in 
Baltimore was built about twenty-five years ago. The 
late Commodore Barney, of the United States Navy, 
having acquired a taste for a more liberal form of 
Christianity during his long residence in France, had, 
it seems, sunk a considerable sum in the building ; and 
as it turned out a bad speculation, he is represented by 
his Unitarian biographer as consoling one of his sons on 

2 k 2 



378 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

the subject by predicting that Unitariavrism would ere 
long be the universal religion in America. Unfortu- 
nately for the prophetical character of the gallant 
Commodore, there is as yet no greater likelihood than 
ever of his prediction being accomplished. The 
Unitarian church in Baltimore is still languishing and 
in debt ; an old Unitarian lady in New England having 
still a mortgage on the building. In short, the 
Unitarians are far from being adepts in that species of 
Church Extension in America which consists in building 
new churches and forming new congregations where 
there were none before. They are rather like those 
birds that build no nests for themselves, but watch their 
opportunity and take possession of those of their 
neighbours. This was the prudent way they went to 
work at Charleston ; where the constant influx of 
mercantile men from the commercial cities of the Ice 
and Granite State creates a demand for Unitarianism 
and ensures a corresponding supply. Proselytism to 
Unitarianism in America is one of the rarest occur- 
rences imaginable. The middle and humbler classes 
of all the evangelical denominations in the Union have 
a perfect abhorrence of the name. 

The present Unitarians in America are divided into 
two parties ; the one of which may, with some latitude 
of interpretation, be designated Semi-Evangelical Uni- 
tarians, the other being pure Deists, or rather Pantheists, 
holding the system of Spinoza, and identifying God 
with the works of his hands. The former party have 
a sort of indistinct feeling that there is something 
wrong with them, and that they are not precisely where 
they should be in matters of religion. The spirits of 
their Puritan forefathers visit them occasionally in " the 
visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon 
men ;" and they start up in terror at the thought, and 
bless themselves that it is only a dream. The late Dr. 
Tuckerman of Boston was of this school. He la- 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 379 

boured hard, but unsuccessfully, to get up a Unitarian 
Mission to India ; but succeeded in establishing the 
Unitarian City Mission in Boston, to which I have 
already alluded. The object of that mission is the 
intellectual and moral improvement of the poor and 
outcast population of the city ; and by giving it some- 
what of a secular character it has hitherto been kept 
up. There is a small Botanic garden, for the use of 
the converts, connected with the Mission-church, and 
lectures on Botany and the other kindred sciences are 
occasionally delivered. In short, it is a sort of 
Missionary Mechanics' Institution. 

The theology of the other party of American Uni- 
tarians being of a much looser texture, sits more easily 
upon them. Their belief of the divine origin and in- 
spiration of the Holy Scriptures is at least problemati- 
cal. They symbolize pretty much with the German Ra- 
tionalists ; and, to tell the real truth, they see very little 
in Christianity worth preserving. They have been in- 
dulging of late in certain wild speculations about the 
nature of God, till they have conjured up in their own 
minds a sort of Anima Mundi quite identical with the 
works of creation. The transition from such a state of 
mind to the wildest fanaticism is by no means unprece- 
dented. At all events, it is not long since several of the 
Divinity-students in the Unitarian Seminary became 
Swedenborgians ! 

The atheistical tendency of the speculations of the 
Unitarian liberals is well known, and was recently the 
subject of a peculiarly severe, but somewhat humorous, 
sarcasm. The Students of Law in Harvard University 
are in the habit of getting up mock-representations of 
a court of justice, for the purpose of exercising them- 
selves in the duties of their future profession. On one 
of these occasions, one of the students was deputed to 
go over to the Unitarian Theological Seminary, which is 
hard by, to request as many of the students of divinity 



380 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

as were required for the purpose to attend the representa- 
tion, for the purpose of forming a jury. Having performed 
his task, the student returned to the court and informed 
the presiding judge that he was sorry a jury could not 
be constituted, as he " could not find twelve men in the 
Seminary who believed in the being of a God !" 

The Unitarian clergy are by no means profound theo- 
logians. An orthodox minister of the Standing Order 
in Massachusetts told me that one of them, a class- 
fellow of his own at college, had called on him some 
time since, and, in the course of conversation, had told 
him he had been consulting Dr. Owen on Church Go- 
vernment, to ascertain the meaning of the terms " Co- 
venant," and " Confession." He was not sure whether 
he had succeeded ; but he presumed " covenant" meant 
the constitution, and " confession" the legislation, of the 
church ! In short, as all the ideas of the old Puritans 
on the subject of politics seem to have been bor- 
rowed from religion, so all the ideas of their Unitarian 
descendants on the subject of religion seem to be bor- 
rowed from politics ; for theology is the science of which 
the Unitarian minister is in general the most profoundly 
ignorant. 

In such circumstances, it is not to be wondered at if 
there should be a great sameness and monotony in the 
discourses of the Unitarian clergy — equally uninterest- 
ing to the preacher and the people. The beauties of 
nature, and the singing of birds, are all very well in 
their proper place ; but people do get tired of them in 
the pulpit, and nobody more so than the unfortunate 
individual who is compelled to ring the changes upon 
them from Sabbath to Sabbath — I mean the preacher 
himself. There is therefore no class of ministers who 
are more at a loss what to talk about in the pulpit than 
the Unitarian clergy ; and any thing in the way of ex- 
citement — as, for instance, the burning or blowing up of 
a Steam-boat, an Abolition-meeting, or a Temperance- 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 381 

agitation — is quite a windfall for them, as it supplies 
them with a subject. Their mode of improving such 
extraordinary occasions for oratorical display is certainly 
somewhat original. On the burning of the Lexington 
Steam-boat in Long Island Sound last winter — a fright- 
ful calamity, by which upwards of a hundred persons 
were either burned to death or drowned — the Rev. Dr. 
Dewey, a Unitarian clergyman of some eminence in 
New York, whose congregation have recently built him 
a handsome church in Broadway in that city, preached 
a sermon on the occasion ; and I was told by a young 
gentleman of Dutch extraction, but of evangelical sen- 
timents, who was present, that the gist of the discourse 
was, that in the chain of Divine Providence such calami- 
tous events are necessary as " sacrifices for the advance- 
ment of the arts and sciences!" Truly, if any of the 
surviving relatives of any of the unfortunate sufferers 
had been present, they might surely have said with pe- 
culiar propriety, " Miserable comforters are ye all !" 

" The American clergy," says Miss Martineau, mean- 
ing the clergy of all the evangelical denominations in the 
United States, " are the most backward and timid class 
in the society in which they live ; self- exiled from the 
great moral question of the time ; the least informed 
with true knowledge — the least efficient in virtuous ac- 
tion — the least conscious of that republican and Chris- 
tian freedom, which, as the native atmosphere of piety 
and holiness, it is their prime duty to cherish and dif- 
fuse." The plain English of all this is, that the great 
majority of the evangelical clergy of all denomina- 
tions, in the United States, are neither Mountebank-po- 
liticians nor Abolition-agitators, which certain of Miss 
Martineau's friends and brethren, the Unitarian clergy 
in New England, notoriously are. It would take 
a great deal of argument, however, to make me be- 
lieve that the Unitarian clergy in the United States 
are really more concerned about the maintenance and 
propagation of civil and religious liberty, or about the 



382 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

real welfare and entire emancipation of the African 
race, than the clergy of the evangelical denominations 
throughout the Union. The simple fact — which Miss 
Martineau either lacked penetration to discover, or 
chose to conceal — is, that the Unitarian clergy in New 
England are miserably in want of an exciting subject ; 
and as their religion unfortunately does not afford them 
any thing of the kind, they are glad to avail themselves 
of those of " politics " and " abolition." If the Unitarian 
clergy were really in earnest about the abolition of 
slavery, they would go at once, with their lives in their 
hands, to the Slave States, and not " waste their sweet- 
ness" in the air of New England, where there are no 
slaves to liberate. If they were really anxious for the 
general and spiritual welfare of the African race, they 
would sometimes be seen, like Dr. Jones, of Columbia 
College, in South Carolina, abandoning their professor- 
ships or their city-churches, to go as missionaries to the 
negroes in the Southern States — they would occasionally 
be seen accompanying the Methodist, and Baptist, and 
Presbyterian, and Episcopalian Missionaries to Western 
Africa. Oh, no ! Miss Martineau has yet to learn that 
Christianity is a religion of self-devotedness and self- 
denial — not of rant. There is nothing that so strongly 
characterises the present age, as an ostentatious display 
of philanthropy, where there is every reason to believe 
that the reality is altogether wanting : and I am only 
sorry to add, that the denomination to which Miss 
Martineau would indirectly arrogate the exclusive 
honour of exhibiting that Christian virtue in America 
is not the only one that is open to the charge. Per- 
haps, indeed, it^would be pretty safe, as a general rule, 
to give men credit for philanthropy, in the inverse ratio 
of their profession of it. 

The Rev. John Pierpont, minister of the Unitarian 
church, Hollis-street, Boston, is one of those Unitarian 
preachers who feel themselves at a loss for an exciting 
subject. Nobody suspects Mr. Pierpont of being even 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 383 

a Semi-evangelical Unitarian. On the contrary, he is 
quite a liberal, and goes the whole length of that 
school. But he wants a subject, and has therefore taken 
up what Miss Martineau would call " the great moral 
question of the time" in Massachusetts — that of Tem- 
perance. In short, Mr. Pierpont is quite a leading 
man in the Temperance-agitation — an out-and-out 
" Repealer of the Union" of alcohol and water in all 
forms — a perfect fanatic for the doctrine and practice 
of water-drinking. Unfortunately, however, the princi- 
pal members of his congregation are distillers ; and these 
worthies, finding their craft in danger by Mr. Pierpont's 
incessant agitation of the subject of Temperance both 
in the pulpit and elsewhere, exercised their Democratic 
privilege, under the Congregational system, by holding 
a Church-meeting, and voting, " That they no longer 
wished the services of the Rev. John Pierpont, as pas- 
tor of their society." Mr. Pierpont, however, could not 
be induced to receive this vote as a " notice to quit ;" 
and very properly taking up the subject as one that 
involved an important principle, observed in a paper in 
reply to the vote, " The question is, whether in this 
country, where the pulpit is not propped by a Bishop's 
staff, and does not lean upon a throne, it can stand 
upright upon the basis of the people's hearts. Is a 
pliant pulpit the only one that can be sustained upon 
the Voluntary Principle ? " 

After reminding the voters that it is "not what they 
wish, but what they want," that is best for them, Mr. P. 
proceeds as follows : — " But, gentlemen, this vote dis- 
covers not only some misconception on your part, as to 
the object of the Christian ministry ; it shows also a 
great misapprehension both of my rights, and of your 
own powers. You seem not to have learned, or to 
have forgotten, that there are two parties to the con- 
tract between you and myself ; and that, in the eye of 
the law, these parties are equal; that if you have rights, 




384 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

so also have I — that if I am under obligations to you, 
so also are you to me — and that you can no more dis- 
solve the relation based upon this contract, without my 
consent, than I could either dissolve it, or constitute it 
without yours. 

" Aside from the act of God, which shall dissolve all 
the contracts and relations of life, there are but two 
ways in which the contract between us can be set 
aside : by agreement of parties and by process of laiv. 
If in neither of these two ways it is set aside, it must 
stand as it is. But neither of these ways is attempted 
in the vote before me ; and as it is equally without the 
sanction of the law, and in derogation of my rights, I 
trust I shall be excused if I treat it as altogether 
nugatory." 

He then inquires for the cause of their opposition, 
for which he has searched in vain in their preamble and 
votes ; neither unworthiness nor incompetency having 
been alleged : and after appealing to them as witnesses 
of his faithfulness, he proceeds to analyze the votes. 

In this analysis he finds that the majority of those 
who had voted for his removal were either distillers and 
wholesale-dealers in ardent spirits, or persons who, 
although proprietors of pews, were not worshippers in 
the church ; while the real majority of his actual con- 
gregation were earnestly desirous of his continuance. 
In these circumstances Mr. Pierpont proposes to sub- 
mit the whole case to an Ecclesiastical Council, agree- 
ably to the Cambridge Platform, and concludes his 
paper with the following solemn and energetic appeal 
to the rum-and-brandy aristocracy of his church : — 

" And now, my brethren, as this may possibly be the 
last counsel that, as your minister, I may ever have an 
opportunity to give you, those of you especially who 
have been most active in disquieting the sheep of this 
Christian fold, by your persecution of its shepherd, — 
indulge me, I pray you, in one word more of counsel. 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 385 

The time is coming when you will thank me for it ; 
thank me the more heartily, the more promptly you 
follow it. Desist — I counsel you to desist, from that 
part of your business which has been the cause of all 
this unhappy controversy ; the cause of your troubles, 
and of my trials and triumphs — for I shall be triumphant 
at last. Desist from the business, that, through the 
poverty of many, has made you rich ; that has put you 
into your palaces by driving them through hovels and pri- 
sons down into the gates of the grave. Abandon the 
business that is kindling the fires of hatred upon your 
own hearth-stones, and pouring poison into the veins of 
your children, — yea, and of your children's children, and 
sending the shriek of delirium through their chambers : 
— the business that is now scourging our good land as 
pestilence and war have never scourged it ; nay, the busi- 
ness, in prosecuting which, you are, even now, carrying 
a curse to all the continents of the world, and making 
our country a stench in the nostrils of the nations. I 
counsel you to stay your hands from this work of 
destruction, and to wash them of this great iniquity, as 
becomes the disciples of Him who came not to destroy 
men's lives, but to save them. As his disciples I coun- 
sel you no longer to absent yourselves from your wonted 
place of worship, but to return to your allegiance, to 
your church, and to God. Say to your minister, 4 Well 
done, good and faithful servant! you have faithfully 
done the work you were ordained to do. You have 
neither spared us nor feared us. You have even 
wdunded us ; but faithful are the wounds of a friend. 
We commend you for your work, and charge you to go 
on with it, that we may meet together, and rejoice toge- 
ther, in the presence of God.' 

" This is the course, my Christian brethren, which it 
will be for your peace to take ; — and not more for your 
peace than for your honour and profit ; for thus you will 
become more rich unto God. The acts of * many ' 

2 L 



386 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 

of your number, to which you allude, in the paper 
before me, ought to admonish you that though you may 
take this course now, the day is not far distant when 
you may not." * 

From the ground he has thus taken on the subject 
of Temperance, which, for several years past, has been 
peculiarly the question of high debate in the State of 
Massachusetts, and from the persecution he has conse- 
quently experienced from the distillers, Mr. Pierpont 
has engaged the sympathies of a large portion of the 
orthodox communions in the Northern States. I am 
happy to add, he has been enabled to maintain his 
ground even under the Voluntary System ; and there 
is now no prospect of his removal from his church. 
However one may lament the utter inconsistency of his 
theological opinions with the gospel of our salvation, it 
is impossible not to give Mr. Pierpont credit for entire 
honesty of purpose and for great manliness and decision 
of character. 

As I was unfortunate in not hearing Dr. Channing 
on the Sabbath I spent at Boston, I was induced, from 
the interest I had taken in Mr. Pierpont's case, as also 
from having seen a beautiful hymn of his composition 
on the landing of the pilgrims in New England, to go 
to Hollis-street Church ; as I was desirous, at all events, 
of hearing some one or other of the more eminent of 
the Unitarian clergy in the chief city of their apostasy. 
Hollis-street Church was originally built for orthodox 
worship in the year 1732. It was burnt in the year 
1787, and rebuilt during the following year. It was 
afterwards taken down and rebuilt in its present form 
in the year 1810. It is a plain but substantial brick 
building, with a granite-basement and a handsome 
spire, and will contain about 1200 persons. 

Mr. Pierpont evinces superior ability in the manage- 

* Extracted from the Christian Watchman, a New England 
Religious Newspaper, for April 1840. 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 387 

ment of his subject. His style is remarkably pleasing, 
and occasionally ornate ; his allusions are often felici- 
tous ; and a vein of delicate irony runs through his 
paragraphs, in a manner which appeared to me quite 
suited to the character and exigencies of a Unitarian 
pulpit. His manner, however, is singularly deficient 
both in earnestness and in energy ; but I presume 
these qualities would rather be out of place in a 
Socinian orator. 

The subject of Mr. Pierpont's discourse was Isaiah 
i. 11, "To what purpose is the multitude of your 
sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord." 

This question, Mr. P. observed, was capable of two 
different significations. It might either mean, What 
object do ye propose to serve in your religious obser- 
vances ? or, What object are these observances calcu- 
lated to subserve ? 

Taking it under the former of these significations, 
Mr. P. observed that we should arrive at the proper 
answer to the question by considering the character of 
the persons — the prophet's contemporaries and fellow- 
citizens in Jerusalem — to whom it was originally 
proposed. The character of these persons, therefore, 
appeared from the whole chapter from which the text 
was taken to have been very bad. The multitude and 
the regularity of their religious observances were fully 
admitted ; but the prophet brings against them at the 
same time this very serious charge, " Your hands are 
full of blood." In such circumstances it was to be 
supposed that 

1. Many of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would 
perform the regular religious services of the Jewish 
church from the influence of habit. They had been 
led to the House of God from their childhood ; they 
had been accustomed to spend a certain portion of their 
time in holy exercises ; they would feel uneasy not to 
be engaged in such exercises when the holy time 



388 UNITARIANI3M IN THE UNITED STATES. 

recurred ; and their object, therefore, in their religious 
observances was simply to get rid of the feeling of 
uneasiness which the non-performance of such services 
would occasion. 

2. Others of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would 
engage in the regular religious observances of the 
Jewish church, because other people did so, and 
because it was fashionable. The land of Israel was 
the chosen land, and the Jews were the chosen people 
of God. It was therefore fashionable in Jerusalem to 
spend a certain portion of time in religious services ; 
and the object of these persons in engaging in such 
services was simply to escape observation and the 
charge of singularity if they did not. 

3. Others would engage in the customary services of 
the period to square accounts with God for the past 
week. They were conscious they had done many 
things contrary to the divine law during the previous 
week, and it was therefore necessary to spend a certain 
portion of time in prayer and other holy exercises, to 
settle their accounts with God. 

4. Others would attend the religious observances of 
the period to keep up the institutions of religion. 
The profession of religion was necessary, they would 
conceive, to the well-being of the State. Other 
nations had their religious institutions, and so should 
they. The Levitical priesthood and the Temple 
services were of divine institution : it was necessary 
and proper, therefore, that they should be kept up. 
For this purpose they would patronize religion ; they 
would give its services the countenance of their 
presence. 

5. Others again would attend the public services of 
the church to observe and criticise the priesthood. 
They wished to see that the prayers were repeated in 
a proper manner, and with suitable and becoming 
gesticulations. They wished to see whether the priest 



UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 389 

ascended the altar-steps in the right way, and held the 
bunch of hyssop and sprinkled the blood with the right 
hand. All these things, and a great many others 
besides, required to be done aright ; and the object of 
such persons was to see that they were so done. 

6. Others would attend the religious exercises of 
the period to set a good example. It was unquestion- 
able that religion w r as a good thing — for the working 
classes of society. It was necessary for the preser- 
vation of public order, and for the well-being of the 
community, that they should be encouraged to perform 
religious services. They would therefore give them 
the benefit of their example. 

Under the second general head of his discourse, Mr. 
Pierpont proceeded to show that all such religious 
services or observances as were prompted by the 
motives and feelings he had enumerated were not only 
worthless, but positively evil. They would not only 
fail of propitiating the Divine favour, but were certain 
to call forth the Divine displeasure. 

It was unquestionable that our religious services or 
observances could in no respect be profitable or advan- 
tageous to God. His were the cattle on a thousand 
hills, and he certainly stood in need of nothing from 
us. Nevertheless, there was a tacit feeling on the part 
of many that by performing such services they laid the 
Divine Being under obligation, and settled their accounts 
with him for the past. This, however, was a great de- 
lusion. To be pious was no compensation for being un- 
righteous, 

Mr. Pierpont concluded by showing that the proper 
object of Divine worship was to contemplate the cha- 
racter of God, that we may resemble him : exhorting 
his people to come to God's house, cherishing devout 
feelings of gratitude towards Him for the bounties of 
His providence, earnestly contemplating His righteous- 
ness and holiness, and asking forgiveness for all they 

2 l 2 



890 UNITARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 






had done amiss, or had not done aright — remembering 
the condition on which alone such forgiveness could be 
granted, viz., that they forsook the evil they professed 
to deplore. 

Such, I have reason to believe, is a very fair speci- 
men of American Unitarian sermonizing. There was 
no reference to Christ of any kind throughout the dis- 
course. It was quite impossible that it could have ex- 
cited devotional feelings in any quarter. Indeed the irony 
with which the first part of it abounded was so exqui- 
site of its kind, and the result — I mean the picture in 
the mind's eye, especially that of the Jew watching the 
priest — so vivid and so ridiculous, that feelings of a to- 
tally different kind were repeatedly excited in my own 
mind in the course of the sermon. 

I could not help regarding Mr. Pierpont's sermon, in 
so far as it exhibited the motives that induced to the per- 
formance of religious observances among the ancient 
Jews, as affording an excellent explanation of the 
phenomena of Unitarianism in New England. Under the 
overruling providence of God, however, the Unitarian 
apostasy has been made to contribute indirectly to an 
extensive, and I trust, permanent revival of religion 
throughout the orthodox communions of the Northern 
States. On the detection of that apostasy, in the year 
1815, the New England churches were aroused at 
length from their fatal security, and found, to their own 
astonishment, how extensively the enemy had been 
sowing his tares while they slept. A reaction com- 
menced forthwith. The orthodox, few and feeble at 
first in the head quarters of the apostasy, gradually ac- 
quired strength and confidence ; another and another 
lodgment was successively effected in the enemy's ter- 
ritory ; another and another of his strongholds gave 
way, till the whole system finally received its death- 
blow, when the separation of Church and State was at 
length effected in Massachusetts, about ten years ago, 



UN1TARIANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. 391 

and entire religious freedom proclaimed in the land. 
The American Unitarians themselves are now convinced 
that they have already passed the meridian of their 
glory, and that their sun is going down while it is yet 
day.* Mr. Pierpont's congregation did not amount 
to one-third of the number of the congregation of the 
orthodox church I attended in Boston on the same 
Sabbath. 

Unitarianism is the disease to which Christianity is 
subject in what may be called its frigid zone. There 
are others, however, to which it is equally exposed in 
the feverish regions of the tropics. Such are the heresies 
of the Universalists, the Restorationists, the Sweden- 
borgians, and the Mormons. The aggregate amount of 
all these heretical sects, however, is a mere nothing 
when compared with the sum total of the orthodox de- 
nominations. Their congregations are few in number 
and of insignificant amount. They make no impression 
on the general population. 

* "/really believe that the majority of men who go to church in 
America do so not from zeal towards God, hut from fear of their 
neighbours ; and this very tyranny in the more established persua- 
sions is the cause of thousands turning away to other sects which 
are not subjected to scrutiny. The Unitarian is in this point the 
most convenient, and is titer ef ore fast gaining ground.'''' — Marryafs 
Diary, p. 217. 

I have very little respect for Captain Marryafs Belief and shall 
therefore say nothing on the subject. As to his fact — -the rapid in- 
crease of Unitarianism in America — it is a gross misrepresentation 
of the truth, which is exactly the reverse ; the Unitarians them- 
selves being judges. 



CHAPTER IX, 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 

I have already remarked that the ringer of God is 
especially observable in his having repressed the Ro- 
man Catholic emigration to the English colonies of 
North America, even after it had commenced under 
favourable auspices in the year 1634, for the long pe- 
riod of a century and a half, or until the churches of 
the Reformation, which were early planted in these colo- 
nies, had increased and multiplied and replenished the 
land * There appears, indeed, to have been a conside- 
rable Roman Catholic emigration to the colony of Mary- 
land during the seventeenth century ; for in the year 
1690 there were not fewer than six Roman Catholic 
priests officiating in that colony. Many Roman Catho- 
lics also must have emigrated to all the thirteen colonies 

* In a manuscript paper which the Rev. Cotton Mather informs 
us had been circulated among the intending emigrants, previous to 
their embarkation, containing, " General Considerations for the 
Plantation of New England," the first is, " That it will be a ser- 
vice unto the church of great consequence, to carry the gospel unto 
those parts of the world, and raise a bulwark against the kingdom 
of antichrist, which the Jesuits labour to rear up in all parts of the 
world. 1 ' For " what," they add, " can be a better or more noble 
work, and more worthy of a Christian, than to erect and support a 
reformed particular church in its infancy, and unite our forces with 
such a company of faithful people, as by timely assistance may 
grow stronger and prosper ; but for want of it may he put to great 
hazard, if not be wholly ruined." What a noble design, and how 
nobly accomplished ! 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 393 

during the eighteenth century ; but the number of emi- 
grants of this communion from the United Kingdom 
was quite insignificant, when compared with the full tide 
of Protestant emigration from the continent of Europe, 
as well as from Great Britain and Ireland, during the 
whole of that period. 

The State of Louisiana, which was purchased by the 
United States' Government from the late Emperor Napo- 
leon, during the peace of Amiens, was originally a French, 
and, consequently, a Roman Catholic colony ; and the 
banks of the Ohio, and certain of its tributary streams, 
as well as the upper waters of the Mississippi, and the 
American shores of the great Canadian lakes, were ori- 
ginally settled by French emigrants from Lower Canada. 
Since the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States, 
there has also been a considerable emigration ' to New 
Orleans from the South of France ; many Gascons hav- 
ing emigrated from Bourdeaux, especially since the ter- 
mination of the last war, to push their fortunes among 
their countrymen in that part of America. 

The territory of Florida also was a Spanish, and, con- 
sequently, a Roman Catholic colony, previous to its 
acquisition, at a still later period, by the United States. 
I am not aware of the amount of the population of this 
territory at the period of its cession to America ; but so 
early as the year 1769, an emigration of 1500 Greeks 
and Minorcans was conducted to East Florida, under 
the superintendence of a Dr. Turnbulh* 

Towards the commencement of the present century a 
considerable number of French refugees, both from France 
and St. Domingo, settled, chiefly as merchants, shop- 
keepers, instructors of youth, and professors of music 
and dancing, in all the Atlantic cities of the American 
republic ; and, during the last twenty-five years, the 
emigration from France to the United States has been 
very considerable. 

* Holmes' American Annals, sub anno. 



394 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

According to the Rev. Dr. Schmucker, about one- 
third of the numerous German emigrants to the United 
States are Roman Catholics ; and Dr. S. adds, that, of 
all the Roman Catholic immigrants in America, the 
Germans are the most liberal, and the least unwilling 
to attend the services of the Protestant clergy. The 
emigration from Poland, during the last ten years, has 
been exclusively Roman Catholic. 

It is chiefly, however, to the emigration from our 
own Green Isle that we are to ascribe the rise and pro- 
gress of Popery in America. The Irish emigration to 
the United States, during the last twenty-five years, 
has been prodigious. It has filled the cities with Irish 
labourers ; it has scattered them in thousands all over 
the Union, especially wherever there were railroads to 
be constructed, or canals to be dug ; and during the 
recent struggle of the two great political parties of the 
United States, it has been sufficient to affect the ba- 
lance of power, and to turn the scale in favour of de- 
mocracy. Judge Torrey, the present Chief Justice of 
the United States, who, it seems, is a Roman Catholic,* 
owes his appointment to the earnest desire of President 
Jackson to conciliate the Roman Catholics of the 
Union in favour of his friend and successor, Mr. Van 
Buren. 

The mortality among this class of the population of 
the United States is quite appalling. A gentleman of 
experience in such matters, told me that the average 
duration of life among the Irish immigrants in America 
is only four years ; and a Scotch gentleman, from New 
Orleans, informed me that not fewer than 500 Irish 
labourers die annually in that city and its immediate 
neighbourhood. Allured by the prospect of high 

* Of the other six judges of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, one is an Episcopalian, another a Presbyterian, a third a 
Methodist, and a fourth a Unitarian. I forget what the other two 
are. At all events they agree to differ in the great point of religion. 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 395 

wages, they accompany the American contractors down 
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the public or other 
works in progress in that part of the Union ; and 
through their own reckless and dissipated habits, con- 
joined with the dreadful unhealthiness of the climate, 
they are mowed down like the standing corn before the 
sickle of the reaper. 

Something of the same kind occurs in the Atlantic 
cities, where multitudes of Irish labourers gradually 
find their way to the southward from New York to 
Charleston, to labour for a year or two as mere beasts 
of burden, and then to sink under the deadly malaria of 
that pestilential clime. Every year of more than or- 
dinary sickliness, large collections are made in Charleston 
to send the Irish and other poor away from the city to 
save their lives.* 

A numerous detachment of these Irish emigrants is 
uniformly left in every American State prison on their 
way to the South and West, to bear testimony, I pre- 
sume, to the moral and religious character of the Green 
Isle. Of the twenty-two foreigners received into the 
State prison at Philadelphia, during the past year, not 



* The streets of Charleston used to be ornamented on each side 
with a row of the beautiful trees called the pride of India ; the 
shade of which was most agreeable in the hot summer. But some 
medical gentlemen of the place, having one of those public 
nuisances called theories, persuaded a late Mayor of the city to cut 
them down, under the idea of their being unfavourable to the health 
of the inhabitants. To mend the matter, the streets are covered 
over with a sort of sea-sand, formed of oyster shells, from which the 
reflection of the sun's rays is almost intolerable. It has since been 
ascertained that it is safest for a planter in these sickly regions to 
build his house in the woods, without cutting down a single tree if 
he can help it ; the noxious qualities of the atmosphere being pro- 
bably neutralized by the exhalations from the foliage. There is 
always a sickly season after an extensive conflagration in Charleston. 
The smoke from the inhabited houses counteracts the influence of 
the malaria ; while it is generated powerfully by the exposure of 
the soil and ruins to the direct ravs of the sun. 



396 POPEEY IX AMERICA. 

fewer than thirteen were Irishmen. Of the remainder, 
three were Englishmen, three Germans, one a Scotchman, 
one a Frenchman, and one a Dutchman. Of the twenty- 
three foreigners received into the Maryland State 
prison at Baltimore, during the same period, not fewer 
than seventeen were Irishmen. Of the rest, one was 
an Englishman, four were Germans, and one a West 
Indian Creole. 

From the preceding enumeration, the reader will be 
prepared to find a considerable Roman Catholic popu- 
lation in the United States. That population has been 
more than doubled by immigration from Europe during 
the last fifteen years, and it now amounts to at least a 
million.* 

The Roman Catholic clergy in the United States 
consist of 1 archbishop, 11 bishops, and 418 priests. f 

The following is the distribution of this clerical force. 

Sta msh S op s f . thC Pries£ Extent of —^ under the ^oP- 

BoSton . . 23 New England. 

New York . 43 New York and New Jersey. 

Philadelphia . 40 Pennsylvania and Delaware. 
Baltimore . 75 Maryland, Virginia, and D. of 

Columbia. 
Charleston . 28 North and South Carolina, and 

Georgia. 
Mobile . .10 Alabama and Florida. 



* Dr. Breckinridge, of Baltimore, estimates the Roman Catholics 
in the United States at a million and a half; but I suspect he is 
somewhat of an alarmist on that subject. Dr. Kenrick, of Phila- 
delphia, Titular Bishop of Arath, estimates them at a million ; and 
I should think he has better means of forming a correct estimate. 
His words are — " In his foederatis provinciis ad mUlionem fere 
pertingere censemur." 

f In the American Almanac for the present year the number of 
priests is stated to be 478. Probably, therefore, the numbers I 
have given in the following list are those of the churches; the 
piiests being somewhat more numerous. 



POrERY IN AMERICA. 397 

Stations of the No. of 

Bishops. Priests. Extent of country under the Bishop. 

New Orleans . 31 Louisiana and Missouri. 

Bardstown . 41 Kentucky and Tennessee. 

Cincinnati . 21 Ohio. 

Vincennes . 15 Indiana and Illinois. 

St. Louis . .68 Missouri and Arkansas. 

Detroit . . 22 Michigan and Wisconsin, 

Baltimore is the residence of the Archbishop. The 
person holding that office at present is Dr. Eccleston, 
a native American, and originally a High Church Epis- 
copalian. As the Roman Catholics, however, have 
been in considerable force in the State of Maryland for 
two centuries past, the wonder is that they are not much 
more numerous there than they are. Mobile is in the ter- 
ritory of the old Spanish Colony of Florida; and New Or- 
leans, and St. Louis, within the limits of the old French 
Colony of Louisiana ; while Cincinnati, Vincennes, and 
Detroit, are in the districts long settled, though very 
thinly, by French Canadians. In the other districts 
the Roman Catholic population consists chiefly of Irish, 
German, and other foreign immigrants ; the number of 
native American Roman Catholics being as yet very 
small. 

The Roman Catholic clergy of the United States 
have made great efforts to get the education of the 
youth of the country as extensively as possible into 
their hands. Funds have been supplied to them for 
this purpose, as well as for the general objects of their 
Church, from Italy, France, and Austria ; the Pope 
himself having granted them 24,000 dollars, or about 
5000 guineas per annum, through the Society de Pro~ 
pagandd Fide. They have not fewer than ten col- 
leges in different parts of the Union ; but of these 
only two or three are of any note as yet. They 
have also established various schools for superior 
education, which are conducted chiefly by foreigners 

2 M 



398 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

from the continent of Europe, and in which education 
is afforded at a comparatively cheap rate ; and by- 
great professions of liberality, and assurances of their 
having no intention to interfere with the religion of 
their pupils, they succeeded for a time, after the first 
establishment of these schools, in lulling asleep the 
suspicions of the public, and in deceiving many parents 
who were desirous of seeing their children adepts in the 
fashionable accomplishments of music and dancing, or 
in talking French and Italian. But the zeal of certain 
of the conductors of these establishments led them to 
overact their part, and at length awakened the suspi- 
cions of the public. In several instances young ladies 
in the Romish Seminaries requested permission from 
their parents to conform to the Romish Church, which 
their teachers, who had gained them over by undue in- 
fluence, were too conscientious, forsooth, to permit 
them to do without the concurrence of their natural 
guardians. Nay, in one instance, the two sons of Pro- 
testant parents, who had been persuaded to intrust 
their offspring to the Heads of a Roman Catholic col- 
lege, were actually taught to believe that their parents 
were not duly married, because the ceremony had not 
been performed by a Roman Catholic priest. 

After a few occurrences of this kind, improved as they 
were by Protestants of zeal and influence in the country, 
the eyes of the American public were effectually 
opened to the danger of encouraging Romish Educa- 
tional Institutions of any kind in the United States ; 
and the supplies of Protestant pupils to these Institu- 
tions were consequently in great measure withheld. 
The Rev. Dr. Miller, of Princeton ; the Rev. Dr. Tyng, 
of Philadelphia ; the Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, of Balti- 
more ; and the Rev. Dr, Brownlee, of New York, were 
all eminently instrumental in various ways in directing 
public attention to the subject throughout the Union. 
These efforts were not uncalled for j for there is reason 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 399 

to believe that previous to the French Revolution of 
1830, there was a regularly organized conspiracy against 
the civil and religious liberties of the United States on 
the part of certain of the greater continental Powers of 
Europe, and that the mode which was deemed the most 
likely to be successful in effecting their object, was that 
of monopolising the education of the youth of the higher 
classes of society throughout the Union. 

The rise and progress of Popery in America, and the 
certain predominance of that system at no distant pe- 
riod in the United States, have for some time past been 
the favourite chords on which every writer on America 
who hates either the Republican Institutions, or the 
Voluntary System, or the evangelical religion of the 
United States, delights to harp, in "discoursing the 
sweet music" of his doleful ditty. 

" Judge Haliburton asserts," observes Captain Mar- 
ryat, " that all America will be a Catholic country. 
That all America, west of the Alleghanies, will event- 
ually be a Catholic country, I have no doubt, as the 
Catholics are already in the majority."* 

I have already stated that the population to the 
westward of the Alleghany mountains is at present 
estimated at five millions ; and that Dr. Kenrick, an 
American Roman Catholic Bishop, whom I have just 
quoted, estimates his body as still under a million — ad 
millionem fere pertingere censentur. Now, as the 
Roman Catholics in the United States consist chiefly 
of persons of the labouring classes, and as the great 
public w T orks in which these persons find employment 
are situated chiefly in the Atlantic States, there is 
reason to believe that at least one-half of the whole 
Roman Catholic population of the Union resides in 
these States. Nay, this must be the case ; for of the 
418 priests in the Union, 219 are stationed in the 

* Marryat's Diary, American edit. Part i., p. 222. 



400 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

Atlantic States. If, therefore, there are five millions 
of people in the Valley of the Mississippi, and if only- 
half a million of these are Roman Catholics, how, I ask, 
can that half million be the majority ? The thing is 
absurd; and, to use a sea-phrase, Captain Marry at may 
tl tell it in future to the marines ; for the sailors will 
not believe it." A clergyman from Missouri informed 
me that the proportion of Roman Catholics in the 
West was one in ten. This tallies exactly with the 
numbers I have given above. 

In regard to the supply of the ordinances of religion 
for the western population generally, 1 have no hesita- 
tion in asserting that, in proportion to their numbers, 
the four millions and a half of Protestants have a larger 
number of ministers and missionaries to dispense the 
ordinances of religion among them than the half mil- 
lion of Roman Catholics. The missionaries of the 
Presbyterian denominations alone, exclusive of their 
settled clergy altogether, are nearly double the number 
of the whole Roman Catholic priesthood in America. 
And the reader will bear in mind that the Presbyterians 
in the West are greatly out-numbered by the Metho- 
dists and Baptists, who, it is well known, are never be- 
hind in this labour of love. 

" The Protestant cause," observes Captain Marryat, 
" is growing weaker every day ; the Catholic church is 
silently, but surely, advancing."* 

" While the Presbyterians," observes Miss Martineau, 
" preach a harsh, ascetic, persecuting religion, the 
Catholics dispense a mild and indulgent one ; and the 
prodigious increase of their numbers is a necessary corn- 
sequence." 

I could easily reply to these general assertions, 
which are merely the offspring of ignorance and spleen, 
with an unqualified contradiction. But I choose rather 

* Diary, &c, p. 220. 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 401 

to refer to specific facts. The Rev. Dr. Tyng, of Phi- 
ladelphia, informed me that, during the eleven years of 
his ministry, as an Episcopalian clergyman, in that city, 
he had admitted to the communion of his church 
twenty-five Roman Catholics, and had not lost a single 
member of his own church. Dr. Breckinridge, of Bal- 
timore, informed me that, during the last thirteen 
years, including five years of the incumbency of his 
predecessor, S5 Roman Catholics had joined the Second 
Presbyterian church in Baltimore, some of whom are 
now the most active and zealous members of his church. 
These are only specimens of what, I have reason to be- 
lieve, is taking place in numberless instances all over 
the country. Dr. B. has been delivering a series of 
lectures, recently, on the Romish controversy, one of 
which I had the pleasure of hearing, during my stay in 
Baltimore. The introductory prayer on the occasion 
was offered up by a Methodist minister, who, I was 
afterwards told, had been born and bred a Roman 
Catholic. In front of the pulpit there was sitting, in 
the area of the church, a Maltese, who, I was informed, 
had been in training for some time for the Romish 
priesthood, but had been savingly converted by reading 
an English Bible to an American sailor, who was dying 
at sea. The young foreigner had never had a Bible in 
his hand before, and he did not read it to the dying 
man, who, it seems, had shown him some kindness, 
from any belief that he could derive any benefit from 
it, but simply because he saw he liked it. This person 
is now a member of one of the Baptist churches in 
Baltimore. Indeed, I was given to understand that the 
number of the converts from Popery, in America, who 
join the Methodist and Baptist communions, is much 
greater than that of those who join the Presbyterian or 
the Episcopal church. A few weeks, however, before 
my arrival at Charleston, a Romish priest in that \;ity 
had publicly renounced the errors of the Church of 

2 m 2 



402 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

Rome, and was shortly to be ordained as an Episcopal 
minister, for the State of Georgia. 

Many, also, of the German Roman Catholic immi- 
grants in the United States, who, in their own country, 
had never seen Protestantism under any other aspect 
than that of Rationalism, have had their understandings 
enlightened, and been savingly converted, under the 
zealous and evangelical ministry of the Lutheran and 
Reformed Churches in their adopted country. In 
passing through Baltimore, in May last, I happened to 
have a few religious newspapers, from various parts of 
the country, put into my hands by a clergyman of that 
city. Among the rest, there was a number of the 
" Lutheran Observer," of the 1st May, 1840, in which 
I found a letter, addressed to the editor, by a Lutheran 
clergyman, of date c< Fell's Point, near Baltimore, April 
21, 1840," of which the following is an extract : — " The 
first Easter- day, we partook of the Lord's Supper, and 
four Roman Catholics partook with us, for the first 
time, of the holy Eucharist, and joined the Lutheran 
Church at the Point, besides some formal Protestants, 
who became awakened through the preaching of the 
gospel. Two of the above-mentioned Roman Catholics 
give sufficient evidence of their real conversion to the 
Lord Jesus ; the two others are not so far advanced in 
spirituality, but are desirous not only to leave the 
darkness of Popery, but to flee from the wrath to 
come."* 

In short, the number of conversions from Popery to 
Protestantism, in the United States, is, beyond all com- 
parison, greater than that of the conversions from Pro- 
testantism to Popery. Dr. Breckinridge informed me 
they were as twenty to one ; and, from all I saw and 

* I forgot to mention, in the proper place, that the American 
Lutheran clergy use the liturgical service of their church ouly at 
the communion. Their prayers are extempore, and they do not 
read their sermons. 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 403 

beard, I have reason to believe that this estimate is not 
far from tbe truth. Indeed, Protestantism has an ag- 
gressive character in America, which it has long since 
lost in Europe ; for I firmly believe that the United 
States are, at this moment, the only Protestant country 
iq Christendom in which Protestantism is actually 
gaining ground upon Popery. Nay, so strongly is this 
the opinion of the Americans themselves, that a dis- 
tinguished American clergyman observed to me, in 
conversation on the subject, " that, if there were a sea 
of fire between their country and Europe, to put a stop 
to European immigration, Popery would be extinct in 
America in fifty years." 

I have already remarked, that the scriptural educa- 
tion of youth in the common schools of the Middle and 
Northern States, and the mental freedom necessarily 
engendered by the political institutions of the country, 
are decidedly unfavourable to the maintenance of the 
Popish system in America. Even where the attach- 
ment of the parents to that system remains unabated, 
the children in very many instances grow up with Pro- 
testant feelings, and throw off the yoke entirely when 
they come to manhood. Very few native Americans 
have, as yet, been educated for the Romish priesthood ; 
the great majority of the American priests being still 
either native Irishmen, or Frenchmen and Belgians. 
Of the twelve bishops, only two are Americans, and 
one of these, Bishop Miles of Mobile, has been but 
very recently appointed .* In such circumstances, it 
must be evident to every intelligent reader, that 
the efforts of the Papacy, as a proselytizing com- 

* Of three American Romish bishops, and three priests, who 
were all fellow-passengers of mine, from New York, in the British 
Queen, only one — Bishop Miles — was an American. The rest 
were all Frenchmen, Italians, and Belgians. The priests were on 
leave of absence, coming to visit their relatives in Europe. The 
bishops were all going to Rome, I presume, to represent to the 
Pope, in person, in what real danger the Church is, under the Vo- 
luntary System, in Republican America. 



404 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

munion in America, must necessarily be very feeble, 
especially when it comes in contact with the intel- 
ligent New Englanders, who generally constitute the 
pioneers of civilization in the West. In short, the re- 
presentations of Captain Marryat and Miss Martineau, 
as to the prodigious increase of Roman Catholics in 
America, from proselytism, are not only contrary to the 
fact, but contrary also to the reason of the case. 

Nay, even Popery itself has not escaped the plastic 
influence of the Presbyterian and Republican institu- 
tions of America. The Roman Catholic laity in the 
United States must have something to say in the go- 
vernment of the church they belong to, as well as their 
neighbours. Something of this kind has, I understand, 
been conceded to them already ; but, as soon as a 
generation of them shall have passed through the 
State Schools, they must have a great deal more, 
otherwise Popery will not continue to be tolerated in 
America — I mean by the Roman Catholics them- 
selves. 

On remarking to an American clergyman, before I 
had ascertained some of the facts I have detailed, that 
many intelligent Christians in Europe were under great 
apprehensions as to the future predominance of Popery 
in the great valley of the Mississippi, he observed, in 
reply, that the American Protestant clergy were under 
no such apprehensions. They had far more, he added, 
to apprehend from Popery in the Atlantic States : not 
from proselytism, however, for of this they were under 
no apprehension ; but from the profanation of the sab- 
bath, which Popery uniformly brought along with it, and 
from its acknowledged tendency to lower the standard 
of morals and religion wherever it prevailed. The 
marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics, which 
necessarily resulted from a Romish immigration, were 
also, he observed, a great evil ; and wherever Popery 
prevailed extensively, infidelity was its never-failing 
accompaniment, among the higher and influential 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 405 

classes of society. It is for these reasons, and not 
from any dread of proselytism, that the Americans de- 
plore the influx of Roman Catholics into their country, 
and that a feeling of uneasiness has latterly been evinced, 
in various parts of the Union, in regard to the immi- 
gration of foreigners altogether. 

I have already remarked that Popery in the United 
States is peculiarly open to the aggressive influence of 
American Protestantism. Protestants in England can 
have no idea of the extent to which this influence is 
exerted, or of its astonishing results. A young man of 
the name of Harlan Page, who died lately in New 
York, and who held, during the latter years of his life, 
the comparatively humble situation of a clerk in the 
New York Tract Depository, was known to have been 
directly instrumental in the conversion of upwards of a 
hundred persons in that city. In his work of faith and 
labour of love, as an occasional distributor of tracts, he 
was in the habit of following up the distribution of his 
tracts with other direct efforts for the spiritual welfare 
of those to whom he had presented them, whenever 
there was any thing either in their character or circum- 
stances that encouraged him to proceed. And these 
humble but zealous efforts for the everlasting welfare of 
his fellow- men were blessed by the Spirit of God to an 
extent which, in all likelihood, will never be known till 
the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. 

The Rev. Mr. Hallock, the Secretary of the Society 
I have just mentioned, was in the habit of walking out 
in the evening with his wife, and visiting every house 
in the particular district of the city he selected for his 
tour, with a parcel of tracts. In one of these tours he 
happened to enter the house of a player in the Bowery 
theatre ; and, finding the player's wife at home, he told 
her that he was engaged in distributing tracts in the 
neighbourhood, and that, although he was aware, from 
her manner of life, that she could not be in the habit of 



406 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

thinking seriously on her eternal welfare, his conscience 
would not allow him to pass her by ; and he hoped, 
therefore, she would not take it amiss if he earnestly 
recommended to her to read the tract he had come to 
offer her, and to make it the subject of her serious 
meditation. The actress, for such she was, replied 
that she had often thought seriously on her manner of 
life, and had even resolved to forsake it entirely very 
shortly. As her husband, however, had an engagement 
in the Bowery theatre on the Monday evening of the 
following week, and as she was also engaged for the 
same evening, she had resolved, after that engagement 
was over, to give up the Stage. Mr. Hallock made no 
reply. In the course of the week, however, the actress 
called at his house, to tell him she could bear her 
manner of life no longer. She felt that she was dis- 
honouring God, and contracting great guilt ; and she 
had therefore resolved to give up the stage immediately. 
In these circumstances she desired Mr. Hallock's ad- 
vice, as to what course she should pursue in regard to 
her engagement for the following Monday. Mr. H. 
told her he could give her no advice on the subject ; 
but that if her determination was the result of princi- 
ple, and of conscientious feelings of duty, she might 
safely leave the issue with God, as he would bring 
about her deliverance, by some means which it was 
impossible to foresee. With this advice the actress 
returned home, and on the Saturday night, or rather, 
the Sabbath morning thereafter, the Bowery* theatre 
was burnt to the ground. 

Such then is the species of Protestant influence and 
agency to which the Roman Catholic emigrant is ex- 



* The Bowery is the name of a wide street in New York, It 
derives this name from the locality having formerly been the site of 
the Bauerey, or " farm, 1 ' of Governor Stuyvesant, the last Dutch 
governor of New York. 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 407 

posed in America, on the part of each of the four 
leading evangelical communions in the United States 
— the Methodists and Baptists, the Presbyterians and 
Low Church Episcopalians. I am unable to state 
which of these denominations is the most active and 
zealous in this work ; but it is generally allowed that 
the Methodists and Baptists are the most successful. 
At all events, the Methodists are now by far the most 
numerous denomination in what was once the Roman 
Catholic State of Maryland. Whether it is because 
they preach a less " harsh and ascetic" religion than 
the Presbyterians, I leave it to Miss Martineau to de- 
termine. 

The establishment of convents or nunneries has 
always been one of the notable devices of Popery, for 
the propagation of its influence, and the consolidation 
of its power ; and ruinous as such establishments have 
ever proved to the morals of nations, and directly op- 
posed as they are to the principles of civil liberty, the 
practice is one which every Protestant government 
ought to watch over with the utmost jealousy. A Lady 
Abbess and a corps of nuns were engaged some time 
ago in France for the establishment of a convent in 
New Orleans, and took their passage in an American 
vessel commanded by a captain from Connecticut.' The 
captain was a bachelor, and during the voyage one of the 
nuns happened to engage his affections, which it seems 
were strongly reciprocated. How the story was mutu- 
ally told is one of those difficult questions which none 
but a professed novelist could be expected to answer ; 
for the captain could not speak one word of French, 
nor the nun one word of English. There are other 
languages in the world, however, besides these ; and the 
parties happened to hit upon one which they both un- 
derstood sufficiently for their purpose. On the ship's 
arrival at New Orleans the captain got a Protestant 
clergyman to go on board and solemnize a marriage 



408 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

between himself and the nun, who of course remained 
on board-ship when the Lady Abbess and the rest of the 
sisterhood went on shore. When the circumstance was 
noised abroad in the French portion of the city, there 
was a prodigious burst of pious indignation ; and the pub- 
lic authorities were appealed to to compel the captain to 
surrender the nun to public justice and the priests. But 
Jonathan was right when he " guessed there was no law 
in the States to compel him to send his wife ashore." 
She is now the mother of a reputable family in the 
" Land of Steady Habits ;" and in such a situation she 
is surely occupying the place for which Divine Provi* 
dence assigned her, and discharging her duty to society 
much more effectually than if she had lived and died 
within the walls of a Romish prison. As to the broken 
vow — the unnatural and unholy vow of an anti- chris- 
tian superstition — to use the language of an eloquent 
writer on another occasion, " When the Recording Angel 
wrote it down, he dropt a tear upon the words, and 
blotted them out for ever." 

A nun who had been nineteen years in a convent in 
Baltimore having escaped in the course of last year, a 
powerful sensation was produced in the public mind ; 
although the nun refused to disclose the secrets of her 
prison-house, and merely solicited protection. In short, 
there is nothing more likely to lead to popular tumults 
and popular outrages in the United States than the 
Romish mania for the establishment of convents. In 
alluding, in conversation with an intelligent American 
gentleman, to the burning of the convent in Massachu- 
setts a few years ago, and to the growing disposition to 
disregard all law and justice, which it was supposed in 
England to evince, on the part of the Americans, the 
American indignantly repelled the insinuation ; observ- 
ing, in explanation of the feelings of his countrymen, 
" There is no law in the United States to authorise un- 



F0PEKY IN AMERICA. 409 

married men to erect a prison for unmarried women 
and to lock them up in it." 

The lecture on the Romish controversy which I 
attended in Baltimore, was the seventh of a series 
which Dr. Breckinridge had been delivering. The 
afternoon had been very unfavourable ; there had been 
much thunder, lightning, and rain ; but the large church 
was quite full, and the subject appeared to be deeply 
interesting to all present. 

The object of the lecture was to exhibit the condi- 
tion of the Church of Rome, or rather of Christendom, 
at the period of the Reformation, and the previous suc- 
cessful efforts of the Papacy to extinguish the light of 
Christianity in Bohemia, in England, and in Southern 
Europe among the Waldenses. On this subject, Dr. 
B. had some theory of his own, which he had previ- 
ously developed, but which I could only guess at, to 
the effect that as the Dragon is said, in the 14th chap- 
ter of the Revelation, to give his power to the beast, 
the characteristics of the Papacy had all along been 
those of Satan, who is described in Scripture as a liar 
and a murderer from the beginning ; its steps being 
traceable in blood, and deceit having been uniformly 
written on its forehead. Dr. B. showed at great length, 
and with great ability and effect, how these character- 
istics had been exhibited by the Papacy all along, and 
particularly in crushing the Reformation in Italy and 
Spain, and in the bloody tragedy of the Netherlands. 

Dr. B. then showed how the constitution of the 
German empire was peculiarly favourable to the pro- 
gress of the Reformation ; comparing it with that of 
the United States — a series of independent sovereign- 
ties, bound together in one common federation. Such 
a state of things was unquestionably favourable to the 
progress of the Reformation, when conjoined with that 
love of liberty and of free institutions which was so 
characteristic of the German race. 

2 N 



410 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

In giving a slight sketch of this period, Dr. B. ad- 
verted to the question " whether resistance is in any 
case allowable in a Christian man for the maintenance 
or defence of his religious liberty ;" alluding to the 
opinion of Andrew Fuller that in no case is it allow- 
able. This opinion Dr. B. controverted ; but I cannot 
say with much success. For my own part, I have 
long been of opinion that the resort to the sword was 
the measure which proved the most fatal to the Refor- 
mation — the one that immediately arrested its progress 
and stripped it at once of its moral and resistless power. 
Nay, I confess that I have never been able, on this prin- 
ciple, to justify certain of the military demonstrations 
even of the Scottish Covenanters. The best apology 
that can be made for these excellent men is doubtless 
that "oppression maketh even a wise man mad ;" for they 
were surely not in their senses when they organized an 
armed resistance to the civil power. 

In the course of the lecture, which occupied upwards 
of an hour and a half, and was listened to throughout 
with the utmost attention, Dr. B. read brief but appro- 
priate extracts from Guicciardini's Storia d' Italia ; 
Maimbourg's Histoire du Lutheranisme ; Miiller's His- 
tory of the German Empire ; Llorente's History of the 
Inquisition ; Dr. McCrie's Account of the Suppression 
of the Reformation in Italy and Spain ; and Fleming's 
Fulfilling of the Scriptures. 

Although I disapprove entirely of all such Societies 
as the Reformation Society, and of all such prize-fight- 
ing exhibitions as the public disputations of Protestant 
ministers and Roman Catholic priests, — on the principle 
that, the preaching of the truth is the best means of 
assailing error — I am nevertheless of opinion that it is 
the bounden duty of every Protestant minister to em- 
brace every opportunity of enlightening his congrega- 
tion and the public generally in regard to the real cha- 
racter and the past history of the Romish religion ; 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 411 

especially wherever the public mind has sunk into a state 
of quiescence on the subject, and when irreligious and 
ungodly men have endeavoured, as was extensively the 
case a few years ago in America, to propagate the de- 
lusive idea that Popery is just as good a religion as 
that of Protestants. In this way Dr. Breckinridge's 
lectures were certainly calculated, to judge from the 
specimen I heard, to be of real service to the cause of 
Protestantism, or rather of genuine Christianity, in the 
United States. At all events they were evidently the 
production of a man of talent and learning, and of great 
historical research. 

The Roman Catholics in America are almost uni- 
versally attached to the democratic party, and vote for 
Mr. Van Buren. The following is M. de Toequeville's 
theory on the subject, which, however, I am by no 
means prepared to admit : — 

" About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a 
Catholic population into the United States ; on the 
other hand the Catholics of America made proselytes ; 
and at the present moment more than a million of 
Christians, professing the truths of the church of Rome, 
are to be met with in the Union. These Catholics are 
faithful to the observances of their religion ; they are 
fervent and zealous in the support and belief of their 
doctrines. Nevertheless they constitute the most 
republican and the most democratic class of citizens 
which exists in the United States ; and although this 
fact may surprise the observer at first, the causes by 
which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon 
reflection. 

" I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously 
been looked upon as the natural enemy of democracy. 
Amongst the various sects of Christians, Catholicism 
seems to me, on the contrary, to be one of those which 
are most favourable to the equality of conditions. In 
the Catholic church the religious community is com- 



412 POPERY IN AMERICA, 



posed of only two elements, the priest and the people. 
The priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and 
all below him are equal."* 

There is no necessity for so recondite a theory to 
explain a very simple fact. The great majority of the 
American Roman Catholics — originally the lower Irish of 
our ow r n country — were Radicals, and Repealers, and 
Universal-Suffrage-men before they went to America. 
They were therefore prepared beforehand to attach 
themselves implicitly to that political party to which 
the Carbonari in all countries universally belong ; and 
the only thing that surprised them in the matter was to 
find that party supported in America by many of the 
heads of society as well as by the tail. The Roman 
Catholic merchant is as much a Whig in America as 
his neighbours, and he will not thank M. de Tocqueville 
for telling the w r orld that " the priest alone rises above 
the rank of his flock, and that all below him are equal." 

I have already referred to a work recently published 
in America, by Dr. Kenrick, Roman Catholic Coadjutor 
Bishop of Philadelphia. It is intended as a sort of 
manual for Roman Catholic students of divinity in the 
United States, and is entitled, " Theologies Dogmaticce 
Tractatus Tres de Revelatione, de Ecclesid, et de 
Verbo Dei, quos concinnavit Revmus Dnus Franciscus 
Patricius Kenrick, Epus Arath, in Part. Infid. et 
Coadj. Ep. Philadelphiensis. Philadelphia? ; Typis L. 
Johnson, in Georgii vico, 1839 — 1840." As a Theo- 
logical work, it is characterised by its American 
reviewer, the Rev. Dr. Hodge of Princeton, as a super- 
ficial production, in which the Bishop vainly endeavours 
to make the semi-pelagianism of the modern Romish 
church symbolize with the doctrines and opinions of 
the celebrated Augustine. The notices it contains, 

* Democracy in America, page 283 ; 2nd American Edition, 
New York, 1838. 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 413 

however, of the various divisions of the Protestant 
Church, and especially of the Protestant churches of 
America, are singularly interesting and amusing ; and I 
shall therefore conclude this chapter with a few quota- 
tions from the Bishop's work, which the mere English 
reader can pass over. 

The following is the Bishop's general account of the 
Protestant churches : — 

" Protestantes in innumeras divisi sectas, plnres 
Europse obtinent provincias, Angliam scilicet, Scotiam, 
Daniam, Sueviam, Norvegiam, Borussiam, Bataviam, 
pluresque Germanise provincias, et magnam Provinci- 
arum Foederatarum partem. In insulis quoque nonnullis 
Indiarum Occidentalium et Orientalium, et in oris 
maritimis Asias reperiuntur. Lutheranismus in Dania, 
et provinciis vicinis, in Saxonia, et in aliis nonnullis 
Germanise partibus praesertim viget : Calvini principia 
in Scotia, Borussia, Batavia, et Anglia potius obtinent. 
Anglicani tamen Hierarchise servant umbram, pluresque 
ritus fere Catholicos : imo plura propugnant principia, 
quae specie Catholica sunt, vel parum a Catholicis 
dissita." 

This well-merited commendation, which the Romish 
bishop bestows upon the High Church, or Puseyite, 
Episcopalians, is not altogether unqualified ; for he adds, 
" Anglicani autem schismatis crimen vehementer exag- 
gerant, sui vulneris haud memores." 

" In his Foederatis Provinciis Presbyteriani, Calvini 
principia plerumque propugnantes, numero et studiis 
pollent, sed in plurimas sectas sub-dividuntur, Veteris a 
Novcb Scholce, uti aiunt, sectatoribus, nuperrime novo 
dissidio scissis. Baptistae, immersionis necessitatem, ut 
valeat baptismus, statuentes ; Methodistae, Episcopaliani, 
aliique omnis generis numero haud parvo reperiuntur. 
Exorti sunt ante paucos annos Mormonitce, aureo libro, 
Bibliis prsestantiori, uti ipsi contendunt, detecto, qui 
jam in provincia Missouriensi armis se tuentur." 

2 n 2 



414 FOPERY IN AMERICA. 

The Mormonites are a recent American reproduction 
of something like the famous Johanna Southcote af- 
fair in our own country — equally extravagant and 
equally contemptible. The following is really a very 
correct view of the principles of Church government 
held by the principal denominations of the Protestant 
Church : — 

" Anglicani Episcopale regimen tenent, cui fldeles 
singuli sunt subjiciendi; qua autem ratione Episcopi per 
orbem inter se conjungantur, ut in unum veluti corpus 
coeant, haud feliciter explicant, charitatis vinculum cum 
fide dogmatum fundamentalium sufficere arbitrantes : 
quod tamen aliquando verbis obscurioribus enuntiant. 
Episcoporum autem institutionem ab Apostolis repetit 
White : Bingham a Christi ordinatione. Methodistae 
nonnulli Episcoporum regimen agnoscunt, quod tamen 
divinitus institutum vix possunt habere, quum Joannem 
Wesley, Episcopali charactere plane carentem, Thorn am 
Coke Episcopum primum sectse ordinasse ipsi referant, 
et Episcopum ordinari posse a senioribus, praeconibus 
scilicet saltern tribus numero, tradant, si temporum cala- 
mitate contigerit nullum in secta superesse Episcopum. 
Apud coetum generalem seu collationem, Anglice, 'Ge- 
neral Confer -ence] praecipuam constituunt potestatem : 
ea quippe ex senioribus, qui in annuis collationibus 
eliguntur, constat, quolibet quadriennio congregatur, 
ipsosque quos vocant episcopos suag subditos auctori- 
tati habet. Baptists? consulunt ut data occasione inter 
se Ecclesiae locales societatem ineant, communibusque 
utantur consiliis, sed omnem auctoritatis notionem ab- 
esse jubent. Presbyteriani Comitiis Generalibus, * Ge- 
neral Assembly'' ex tota America Foederata collectis, 
praeconibus et laicis senioribus in id electis, potestatem 
summam in suaa sectse negotiis tribuunt. Singulas 
paraecias apud illos regit praeco cum duobus saltern 
laicis senioribus, qui tribunal constituunt ' Sessionem' 
vocatura ; plures sessiones tribunal Presbyterii efficiunt, 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 415 

in quo conveniunt praecones omnes qui ad eas pertinent, 
una cum laico seniore ex qualibet : synodus tria saltern 
Presbyteria complectitur, et ex prseconibus, et laicis 
senioribus, pari ratione constituitur : Comitia Generalia 
fiunt semel in anno, prascone uno ex viginti quatuor 
cujuslibet Presbyterii, et seniore uno pariter coadu- 
natis. 

" In ditionibus Angliae rex, vel regina, in omnibus 
causis, turn ecclesiasticis, turn civilibus, praecipuam 
habet potestatem juxta articulos Anglicanos : sed Epis- 
copaliani Americani proritentur civilem Magistratum 
nullam habere auctoritatem in rebus mere spiritualibus. 
Habetur Coetus Generalis Episcoporum, * General Con- 
vention ;' Ministris cum laicis etiam intervenientibus. 
Omnibus prasest Episcopus senior ordinatione, qui 
tamen nullam in caeteros exercet auctoritatem. Angli- 
cani Episcopum Romanum nullam habere in Angliae 
ditionibus jurisdictionem affirmant ; sed de eo silent 
Americani Episcopaliani. Methodistae nullam exteram 
jurisdictionem agnoscunt ; sed Baptistae et Presbyte- 
riani in Episcopum Romanum tanquam Antichristum 
debacchantur." — Vol. i., pp. 140, 141. 

In the following paragraphs, Bishop Kenrick exhi- 
bits the views of the principal Protestant denominations 
in regard to the authority of the Church, and shows 
how much they all stand in need of a common centre 
of infallible authority, like the Pope in the Church of 
Rome. He also evinces no slight acquaintance with 
the facts of the recent division of the American Presby- 
terian Church into the Old and New School Assemblies, 
and evidently regrets the departure of the American 
Episcopalians from the better practice of the Church 
of England, in regard to confession and absolution. 

" Presby teriani in Comitiis suis Generalibus agnoscunt 
potestatem judiciariam in doctrinae controversiis, sed 
earn contendunt esse mere declaratoriam, adeo ut Sanc- 
tas Scriptural sint unica regula fidei et morum. Des 



416 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

truunt manifesto quod aedificant, dum errorem subesse 
posse hujusmodi judiciis baud gravantur fated. Deest 
igitur unitatis principium, nullum enim est tribunal quo 
doctrina certo dijudicari valeat. 

" De Ecclesiae potestate in controversiis fidei silent 
Methodistae, verba articulorum Anglicanorum alioquin 
plerumque excribentes. 

" Baptistse supremum controversiarum judicem nul- 
lum alium agnoscunt praeter scrip turam a Spiritu tradi- 
tam. 

" Liquet igitur apud Sectas nullum esse tribunal 
quo fidei unitas servari possit, quum summa judicia in- 
certa ab ipsis agnoscantur, et erroris periculo obnoxia," 
Vol. i. p. 182. 

" Ex Paley audivimus quae opinionum licentia ob- 
tineat apud eos qui articulis Anglicanis subscribunt. 
Recentissime vero luculentum datum est argumentum 
Confessionem Presbyterianam nullam vim apud sectam 
obtinere ; in ipsis enim Comitiis Generalibus, singulis fere 
annis sentential contraries obtinuerunt, alternatim fere 
Scholce Novce, quae a confessionis principiis longissime 
discedit, vel Scholce Veteri Calvinianae faventes. Quum 
autem commentationes in epistolam ad Romanos a Bar- 
nesio, Philadelphia? ante paucos annos editae, haereseos 
fuissent insimulatae, ipseque ex Synodi auctoritate a 
munere praedicandi suspensus, Comitia Generalia Pitts- 
burgi anno 1836 eum absolverunt : anno vero sequenti 
Comitia Generalia Philadelpbise babita, omnes Novae 
Scholae fautores et Ecclesias in quibus eae circumfere- 
bantur opiniones a consortio suo absciderunt, qua ratione 
sexcenti fere praecones simul abscissi dicuntur. Haec 
sane ostendunt confessionem nullatenus idoneam fidei 
unitati perpetuo servandae." Vol. i. p. 184. 

" Re quidem vera Episcopaliani nostrates in baptismi 
administratione omittunt singillatim interrogare de Sym- 
boli articulis, utrum scilicet credat baptizandus in Pa- 
trem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, Sanctam Ecclesiam 



POPERY IN AMERICA. 417 

Catholicam, remissionem peccatorum, et caetera : sub- 
stituta interrogatione generali : utrum teneat omnes 
articulos fidei Christiana? prout in Symbol o Apostolico 
continentur. Quamvis haec mutatio parvi moment! 
possit cuiquam videri, ex industria facta quum sit, peri- 
culum praesefert ne sensim sine sensu a pluribus fidei 
dogmatibus recedendi quasratur occasio. Quod vero 
ad rem magis facit, in visitatione aegrotorum olim apud 
Anglicanos prsescriptum est ut minister aggrotum hor- 
taretur ad specialem peccatorum confessionem peragen- 
dam, eique confesso absolutionem auctoritate sibi a 
Christo commissa impertiretur : quam absolvendi potes- 
tatem Ecclesiae denegare esset, teste Pearsonio, haere- 
sis Novatiana. Jam vero omnem mentionem confes- 
sionis, et absolutionis, Rituale Americanum prorsus 
omittit. 

" Quum Methodistse Episcopalianos imitentur, Bap- 
tistse vero et Presbyteriani nullam fere habeant formam 
cultus, sed pleraque praeconum permittant arbitrio, qui 
orationes fundere, legere scripturas, bymnos canere, et 
conciones facere pro occasione debent, liquet fidei uni- 
tatem in cultu et sacramentorum administratione nullum 
apud sectas habere prassidium. 

"Nullum est principium apud Sectas quo in regimine 
servari possit unitas, vel foveri sacra cum Christi fideli- 
bus per orbem communio : nam nulla est communis 
auctoritas qua teneantur. Comitia Generalia in America 
nullo auctoritatis ligamine cum Calvinianis Scotis, An- 
glis, Genevensibus conjunguntur, sed sola imitatione 
regiminis, et doctrina? similitudine, plurimis capitibus, 
quae odium paritura forent, mutatis, se fratres exhibent.* 
Ipsa comitia non valent unitatem in sua provincia ser- 
vare, quum auctoritatem nullam sacram habere agnos- 
cantur, et oscillatione quadem ia varias ferantur partes. 
Episcopaliaui nullo cummuni vinculo tenentur, Angli- 

* The only change is in the chapter of the Civil Magistrate, whose 
authority in the church the Americans totally deny. 



418 POPERY IN AMERICA. 

cani enim regem vel reginam in omnibus causis civilibus 
et Ecclesiasticis, intra suam ditionem, suprerna auctori- 
tate pollere fatentur, quod ex Dei ordinatione repetit 
rex in solemni sua declaratione articulis praefixa. Nos- 
trates autem Conventione Generali res suas moderantur, 
in singulis dicecesibus coetu quodam statuto, quo et 
Episcoporum arctetur potestas. Adeo autem carent 
communionis sacro vinculo, ut non nisi humanitate qua- 
dam conjungi cum Anglicanis dici possint, cujus exer- 
citium leges Anglicanse coercent, vetantes ne exterus 
quis episcopus in suis Ecclesiis concionetur. Anglicani 
porro cleri comitia, quae Convocationem vocant, ne- 
queunt haberi absque venia regia, qualem etiam sanc- 
tionem ejus decreta exigunt ut valeant." — Vol. i. p. 186. 

I shall conclude with the following quotation exhi- 
biting Bishop Kenrick's view of the tenets of the four 
leading evangelical denominations in America, in re- 
gard to the office of a Bishop : — 

" Plerique sectarii in hac regione vel Episcopale re- 
gimen prorsus rejiciunt, vel illud ad Ecclesiasticam 
politiam referunt, quin a Christi institutione derivetur. 
Presbyteriani contendunt nullam specialem auctoritatem 
regiminis Episcopi vocabulo designari, sed de simplici 
quovis animarum pastore illud usurpari. lis Baptistae, 
ut plerumque, assentiuntur. Methodistas nonnulli 
Episcopalis regiminis nomen retinent, sed illud repetunt 
ex Wesleyi in hanc formam voluntate magis propensa, 
eum Episcopatus sui auctorem agnoscentes. Episco- 
paliani eo gloriantur ; sed ex Apostolorum institutione 
illud derivat White, qui, moderations laudem cupiens, 
animadvertit Ecclesiam Anglicam absolutam ejus neces- 
sitatem nunquam affirmasse, et Bancroftum ipsum, 
dum ageretur de Episcopis Scotias dandis, ab ea quaes- 
tione dirimenda consulto abstinuisse, ne omnes pene 
Ecclesiae Reformatae ministerio carere viderentur." 
— Vol. i. p. 246. 



CHAPTER X, 



SLAVERY, ABOLITION, AND AFRICAN 
COLONIZATION. 

The existence of slavery in the United States is the 
grand anomaly in the political and social system of 
America ; the dark spot in the national banner ; the 
source alike of present weakness and of future 
calamity. 

There are certain things, however, which every in- 
telligent and candid Englishman ought to bear in mind 
before visiting the Americans with unqualified condem- 
nation for the existence of slavery in the United States ; 
and the first of these is, that slavery in America is en- 
tirely of British origin and creation. There was a period 
when slavery was not only lawful in the British domini- 
ons, but when the Slave-trade itself was regarded as one 
of the most important branches of the national industry. 
It was encouraged by the Commons ; it was protected 
and promoted by the Lords ; it was made the subject of 
solemn treaties with other Powers, in which the British 
Government stipulated for a monopoly of the traffic, and 
aspired to the character and office of Kidnapper Gen- 
eral for the world. By the treaty with Spain in the 
year 1713, commonly called the Treaty of Ayun- 
tamiento, it was stipulated that Great Britain should 
have the exclusive privilege of importing slaves into the 
Spanish colonies for thirty years, and that during that 
period she should import not fewer than 144,000, or 



420 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

4800 per annum. The privilege had previously been 
enjoyed by the French Guinea Company, and it was 
considered an important object gained for the nation to 
have it transferred to Great Britain. 

It was in this state of feeling throughout the civilized 
world towards the unfortunate children of Africa, that 
certain of the British colonies of America became slave- 
holding colonies. Certain, indeed, of the American 
colonists petitioned, from time to time, that the import- 
ation of negroes into these colonies might be dis- 
continued ; but the trade — the Slave-trade — was a 
source of profit to Britain, and the petitions were not 
granted. In process of time the American colonies 
rebelled against the tyranny of the mother-country, and 
forming a League for their mutual defence, proclaimed 
themselves Sovereign and Independent States. By this 
League, the independent sovereignty of each of these 
States was distinctly recognized by all the rest, and the 
permanence of the civil institutions it had enjoyed 
during its colonial existence guaranteed from all inter- 
ference from without. This League was subsequently 
matured into the Constitution of the United States ; 
and to the Government created by that Constitution, 
each of the Sovereign and Independent States sur- 
rendered the administration of certain matters of general 
concernment, retaining their independent and sovereign 
jurisdiction in reference to all others. Those matters 
of general concernment that were thus intrusted to the 
General Government were — 1st. Intercourse with Fo- 
eign Powers, or the Concerns of War and Peace. 2nd. 
The Regulation of Foreign Trade, and the Department 
of Customs. 3rd. The Administration of the Post 
Office ; and 4th. The Management of the Public 
Lands. In all matters, therefore, that cannot be dis- 
tinctly arranged under one or other of these heads, 
the Government of the United States is precluded from 
intermeddling. The civil institutions of society 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 421 

throughout the Union are left by that Government as 
it found them, to be modified or changed agreeably to 
the sovereign will and pleasure of each sovereign and 
independent state. 

But why, it may be asked, did the Americans not 
abolish slavery when they proclaimed their national in- 
dependence ? In other words, why were the Ameri- 
cans at the Revolution not at least half a century in ad- 
vance not only of Great Britain, but of the whole civil- 
ized world? Unfortunately the mercury had not then 
risen so high in the thermometer of public opinion in 
any part of the world, as to indicate the wrongs of 
Africa — the monstrous injustice with which her children 
were treated in every country and by every nation. The 
perception of the enormity of the Slave-trade, and of the 
whole system of slavery, was, so to speak, a sixth sense 
which was only slowly communicated even to the British 
nation, within the last forty years, through the labours 
of Clarkson. 

It may be asked, however, with much greater pro- 
priety, why did the British Parliament not abolish slavery 
in America when it had the power — when it claimed 
" the right to make laws to bind the colonists in all 
cases whatsoever?" The opportunity of abolishing 
slavery in America was then lost for ever by the British 
Parliament — lost through its own gross mismanagement 
and tyranny, a circumstance that only aggravates its 
guilt. But it is absurd to talk of the British Parliament 
abolishing slavery in America at the period referred to : 
more than a quarter of a century was suffered to elapse 
after this period before it abolished the Slave-trade. 

The existence of slavery, therefore, under the Con- 
stitution of the United States, was the necessary result 
of the circumstances and feelings of the times in which 
that constitution was framed — it was the necessary re- 
sult of the British training and education of the patriots 
of American Independence, It was no disparagement 

2 o 



422 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

to these men, as compared with all their contemporaries, 
that, in this important particular, they were not half a 
century in advance of their age. It would only have 
been miraculous if they had. 

Slavery could scarcely be said to have ever existed 
in New England. It was formally abolished in that 
part of the Union immediately after the War of Inde- 
pendence. In the great States of New York and Penn- 
sylvania, the leading States of the Union, as also in the 
intervening State of New Jersey, it was abolished 
shortly thereafter. And how was it abolished in these 
States, in which it had been maintained to the last under 
British supremacy ? Simply through the influence of 
Christianity on the public mind, and the prevalence of 
a strong conviction of the sound policy of the measure, 
as a measure of mere political arrangement. And has 
Christianity entirely lost its influence on the public mind 
now in the Slave-holding States in America? Is the 
conviction of the impolicy of the institution of slavery 
peculiar to the Free States ? Why, so general had this 
conviction become about nine years ago, and so strongly 
had the influence of Christianity prevailed on the sub- 
ject, in the great State of Virginia in particular, that a 
bill for the abolition of slavery in that State was intro- 
duced into the legislature of Virginia in the year 1831 
or 1832, and was all but passed. At that period also, 
the state of public feeling on the subject was precisely 
similar in the neighbouring Slave States of Maryland, 
Kentucky, and Tennessee ; and if circumstances had not 
subsequently intervened to change the direction of the 
current of public feeling on the subject, there is no ques- 
tion but that slavery would very soon thereafter have been 
voluntarily abolished in all these States. For in additipn 
to the powerful influence which Christianity had brought 
to bear upon the question, it was evident to the in- 
habitants of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennes- 
see, that the population was increasing much faster in 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 423 

the neighbouring free States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, 
that the value of property was much higher in these 
States, and that the people generally were in more 
prosperous circumstances.* 

The Abolition-agitation commenced, however, about 
the period I allude to ; and, on the passing of the Bill 
for the emancipation of the slaves in the British colo- 
nies in the year 1834, that agitation was greatly 
increased. Abolition Societies were formed all over the 
Free States ; Abolition newspapers and magazines were 
established; tracts on the subject — some of them of a 
very exciting and even inflammatory character — were 
circulated in the Slave States ; and lectureships and 
itinerancies were organized. By these means the slave- 
holders of the Southern States were indiscriminately 
assailed in the most unmeasured terms ; they were de- 
nounced as enemies of the human race and as utterly 
unworthy of the name of men ; and the Christian 
churches to which many of them, as well as of their 
slaves belonged, were characterised as mere synagogues 
of Satan, and virtually excommunicated. In the midst 
of this agitation, Mr. George Thompson, the apostle of 
Abolition, arrived in America, and added to all the 

* The Slave-state of Kentucky was settled in the year 1775, 
and admitted into the Union as a Sovereign State in 1792. That 
of Ohio, which is separated from Kentucky merely by the Ohio 
river, and in which the soil and climate are precisely similar, but 
which has been free from the first, was settled in 1788, and was not 
admitted into the Union till 1802. In 1830, however, the popula- 
tion of the two States was as follows : — 

Kentucky (including Slaves) . . . 687,917 
Ohio (all free) 937,903 

The difference is now far greater ; and the value of property in Ohio 
is double its value in Kentucky. 

In 1780, Population of Virginia, 650,000; of New York, 400,000 
— 1830 ditto ditto 1,211,405 ditto 1,918,608 

Of this Population Slaves . 469,724 ditto 46 

The difference is much greater now, and the value of property is 
three times greater in New York than in Virginia. Slavery is now 
quite extinct in New York. 



424 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

other grounds of complaint which the slave-holders con- 
ceived they had against the whole scheme of Abolition, 
that of foreign interference. 

Now, while I am quite willing to give entire credit 
to the Abolitionists for sincerity, and for honesty of 
intention, and while I am most willing also to admit 
the excellence of the object they had in view, I must 
nevertheless be permitted to record my entire disappro- 
val of the course they have pursued, as being directly 
calculated to defeat that object, to irritate and exaspe- 
rate the slaveholder, and, what is worst of all, to embit- 
ter the bondage of the unfortunate Negro, and to rivet 
his chains. 

The Abolition-agitation has been utterly powerless 
and inefficient in regard to the ultimate liberation of 
the Negroes. Nay, it has unfortunately had quite the 
opposite effect ; for, as it was necessarily confined to 
the Free States, and as it avowed the determination to 
effect its object at all hazards, the Slave States were 
naturally led to regard it as an unconstitutional and 
foreign interference with their independent sovereignty, 
and to band together for their mutual protection. The 
laws for the restraint and coercion of the Negroes, and 
for their exclusion from the benefits of instruction and 
civilization were, therefore, increased in severity ; and 
the measures in actual progress for the abolition of 
slavery in the Domestic Legislatures of the four States I 
have referred to, were at once identified by interested 
parties with those of the Northern abolitionists, and con- 
sequently put a stop to. The Bill for the Abolition of 
Slavery in the State of Virginia, which was calmly 
discussed upon the real merits of the question, in the 
Legislature of that State, in the year 1881 or 1832, and 
w r as lost only by a small majority, would, in all proba- 
bility, not find a single supporter in that Legislature at 
this moment : simply and solely because of the Abolition 
agitation from without, and because of the general con- 
viction throughout Virginia that that agitation is an un- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 425 

constitutional interference with the independent sove- 
reignty of the State, and an unwarrantable attempt to 
force upon it the measure of slave-emancipation, whe- 
ther it will or no. In short, as it often happens in this 
world of anomalies, that a man's sincerest friends are, 
in reality, though unintentionally, his greatest ene- 
mies ; the unfortunate Negro in the Southern States of 
America has at this moment good reason to exclaim, 
" Save me from my friends ! " 

In the meantime, through the efforts of the Aboli- 
tionists to force the consideration of the question of 
slavery upon the General Government, and to bring the 
whole influence of that Government to bear upon it, the 
utmost alarm began to prevail in all quarters for the 
permanence of the Union. For if the General Go- 
vernment had, in conformity to the wishes of the 
Abolitionists, ventured to interfere with the question of 
slavery, which, under the constitution that created that 
Government, belonged exclusively to the State Legisla- 
tures, in the capacity of independent sovereignties, the 
Slave States would in that case have dissolved the 
Union, and constituted themselves a separate Republic, 
as in such a casus foederis, they would unquestionably 
have been justified in doing. 

Now I am quite willing to say with the Abolitionists, 
" Perish the Union, if it can only be maintained at the 
expense of slavery !" But the grand misfortune of the case 
is that if the Union were actually dissolved, and the Slave 
States formed into a separate and homogeneous Republic, 
excluding every thing like freedom from within its terri- 
toiy, the ultimate abolition of Negro Slavery in Ame- 
rica, would only be indefinitely and hopelessly postponed. 
The unrestrained intercourse that is at present taking 
place between the Free and the Slave States ; the in- 
fluence of the right feeling and Christian sentiment of 
the former upon the latter, and the much higher degree 
of prosperity that is enjoyed under the free institutions 

2 o 2 



426 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

of the North, than under the bondage and degradation 
and compulsory labour of the South — all these causes 
combined are exerting an influence upon the Slave States, 
before which slavery cannot stand. But if the Slave 
States should be driven to dissolve the Union, and to 
erect themselves into a separate Republic, all this in- 
tercourse and influence would immediately be stopped ; 
the Slave-territory would thenceforth be guarded from 
intrusion with all the vigilant jealousy that surrounds an 
Eastern harem, and the monstrous institution of slavery 
would by every means be maintained and perpetuated. 

The alarm, in regard to the permanence of the Union, 
was therefore well founded ; and a strong re-action, in 
opposition to the violent measures of the Abolitionists, 
necessarily ensued, on the part of many real friends of 
the Negro in the Free States. This state of public feel- 
ing will be better understood and appreciated by the 
reader, when he takes into consideration the prevailing 
sentiments of the Americans in regard to their National 
Union. The attachment of the Americans to the Union 
is strong and universal. It is like the feeling of loyalty to 
the sovereign under the old monarchies of Europe ; and 
it is in so far superior even to that feeling, that it is not 
merely an instinctive impulse, but the result of a de- 
liberate and enlightened conviction. Their great patriot 
Washington bequeathed it to them as a sacred duty to 
preserve the Union inviolate under all circumstances, 
and to permit no conjuncture to hazard its dissolution. 
The following are the words of that illustrious man in 
his Address to Congress, in the year 1796. 

" It is of infinite moment that you should properly 
estimate the immense value of your National Union to 
your collective and individual happiness ; that you 
should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable at- 
tachment to it ; accustoming yourselves to think and 
speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety 
and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with jealous 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 427 

anxiety ; discountenancing whatever may suggest even 
a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned ; and 
indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every 
attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the 
rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link 
together the various parts."* 

Now, not only was there a general belief on the part 
of the intelligent portion of the American community 
that the violent measures of the Abolitionists were hasten- 
ing on a dissolution of the Union ; but even the cha- 
racter of Washington himself — the man whom they uni- 
versally regard as sans peur, et sans reproche — was pub- 
licly assailed by certain Abolition orators, in the most in- 
temperate manner, in one of the chief cities of the Re- 
public. In the Pennsylvania Hall, a large building 
erected by the Abolitionists for their public meetings, in 
the city of Philadelphia, it was stated by one of their 
orators, that Washington himself had proved a renegade 
to his principles, as he had not even liberated his own 
slaves.f This however was more than Jonathan, cold 
and phlegmatic as he is generally, could stand ; a 
large concourse of people, not of the lowest class 
either, assembled around the Hall as soon as the cir- 
cumstance was reported, and measures were de- 
liberately taken to burn it to the ground. For this 
purpose the gas-pipes were broken, and the ends of 
them turned under the shutters and doors of the build- 
ing : lights were applied, and the Hall was in flames. 
The Mayor of the city and a posse of constables ap- 
peared, but the rioters were too numerous and deter- 
mined for their interference in any way. The city fire 
engines were brought to the spot, and even the rioters 
— unlike the Birmingham people on such occasions — 
assisted the firemen to the utmost in protecting the 

* Washington's Farewell Address to Congress, 1796. 
f He had ordered, in his will, that they should he liberated on the 
death of his widow. 



428 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

neighbouring houses ; but not one drop of water would 
they suffer to be thrown upon the Pennsylvania Hall. 
As soon, however, as the building was entirely de- 
stroyed, the rioters dispersed quietly to their respective 
homes. 

If Pennsylvania had been a Slave State this outrage 
could easily have been accounted for. But as it is a 
Free State — a State in which slavery has been entirely 
abolished for many years — it could only have arisen 
from the causes I have assigned ; viz., from the preva- 
lent conviction that the measures of the Abolitionists 
were tending to a dissolution of the Union ; and from 
their having unnecessarily attempted to throw oppro- 
brium upon the man whom his country " delights to 
honour." I received this account from a clergyman 
of Philadelphia — a real friend of the African race — 
who pointed out to me the ruins of the Pennsylvania 
Hall, as we happened to pass them in the city. 

The idea generally prevalent in England on the sub- 
ject of slavery in the United States is, that slavery 
could just as easily be abolished in America by a vote 
of Congress, as it was in the West Indies by a vote of 
the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain. But the 
fact is, that the Congress of the United States 
has just as little to do with the abolition of slavery in 
the States of Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, or North 
Carolina, as the Parliament of Great Britain has to do 
with it in the dominions of Portugal. Each of these 
Slave States is an independent sovereignty, and the 
measure of abolition, therefore, can only originate in its 
own Domestic Legislature. Now, does any candid per- 
son suppose that, if the case had been at all similar in 
our own West India Islands, the British Parliament- 
ary measure of Abolition could have been carried, 
even with the twenty millions of compensation ? Cer- 
tainly not. Why, if the British Parliament had been 
precluded by its constitution, like the American Con- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 429 

gress, from dealing with the question of slavery in any- 
way, and if the West Indies had had a domestic legis- 
lature competent to decide absolutely upon that ques- 
tion, they would most certainly have rejected the offer 
even, of the twenty millions, with indignation, and told 
the British Parliament to mind its own affairs. And 
are slave-holders in the United States totally dif- 
ferent men from slave-holders in the West Indies ? 
Unfortunately, they are men of like passions in every 
way. 

Believing, therefore, as an unprejudiced and dis- 
interested observer, that the Abolition-agitation, both 
in this country and in the United States, has been alike 
unfavourable to the cause of Abolition and to the pre- 
sent welfare of the American negro, I proceed to state 
that there are only two sources to which we can look, 
with any degree of hope, for the abolition of slavery in 
the American Republic — the influence of Christianity 
on the one hand, and a general conviction of the im- 
policy and unprofitableness of slavery on the other. 

Christianity has already done much for the negro in 
America. It has brought hundreds of thousands of his 
unhappy race within the blissful influences of the 
gospel of Christ ; it has elevated many, even of the 
slaves, to the rank of " the Lord's free-men ;" it has 
lighted up the charities of heaven in the breast of 
many a master, and shed blessings innumerable upon 
many a slave. In short, it has fitted a very large portion 
of the African race in the United States for the due 
exercise of liberty, whenever, in the good providence of 
God, they shall obtain that inestimable boon. 

I am well aware that the idea of a " Christian slave- 
holder" will appear to many in this country a contra- 
diction in terms. It is sufficient, however, to reply to 
all such general assertions, that, if the apostle Paul had 
thought so, he would scarcely have addressed an epistle 
to his " dearly beloved and fellow-labourer," the slave- 



430 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

holder " Philemon." Christianity was originally fitted 
by its Divine Author for all states of society, for all 
political institutions ; and it appears to me, that it is 
by no means the right way to promote either Christi- 
anity or the abolition of slavery, to launch out an in- 
discriminate sentence of excommunication against whole 
classes of professing Christians, in a state of society, 
and under political institutions, to which we are total 
strangers. For my own part, I was more than aston- 
ished at finding evidences of the extensive prevalence 
of Christian influence in a land in which, I confess, I 
had anticipated something very different — I mean a 
land of slaves. 

But how few are there, even in the most favourable 
circumstances, whose character and conduct are at all 
influenced by Christian motives! We are divinely 
taught that real Christians are only as "the salt of the 
earth ;" that is, not merely designed to preserve the great 
mass of society from absolute putrefaction, but small 
also in proportion to that mass, as the handful of salt is, 
when compared with the carcase it preserves. And if 
this is the case even in free countries, how much more 
so must it not be in a land of slaves ! 

It is unreasonable, therefore, to suppose that Christian 
influence alone will suffice to carry the measure of 
Abolition in the United States. Man is essentially a 
mercenary being : his duty must be identified with his 
interest to insure its performance ; his understanding 
and affections must be addressed through his pocket. 
In other words, it is hopeless to look for the general 
abolition of slavery in the United States till slavery has 
become generally unprofitable to the slave-holder. In 
this view, the effort that is now making for the exten- 
sive cultivation of cotton in the East Indies deserves 
every degree of encouragement and support from the 
British philanthropist ; for the successful accomplish- 
ment of that important object will not only tend to 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 431 

elevate the character and to minister to the comfort of 
the millions of India, but will tend directly to diminish 
the value of slave-labour in the United States, and 
thereby to accelerate the unconditional emancipation of 
the American Negro. Nay, I would not rest satisfied 
with a single effort of this kind. I would have a cot- 
ton-growing colony established on the north-east coast 
of New Holland, where the climate and soil are pecu- 
liarly adapted to that species of cultivation, and where 
thousands and tens of thousands of free labourers would 
gladly settle of their own accord, from the Malay 
Islands, from China, and from Ceylon. This were, in- 
deed, a legitimate mode of agitating for the abolition 
of slavery in America, and, I may add, a patriotic one 
also.* 

In connexion with these efforts for the ultimate ex- 
tinction of slavery, I have long regarded the philan- 
thropic attempt to establish colonies of coloured men 
on the coast of Africa as one of the likeliest means of 
effecting a great moral revolution in favour of the 
Negro, both in Africa and America. The individual to 
whom Christian philanthropy stands indebted for this 
idea is the celebrated Granville Sharpe. That eminent 
philanthropist having interested himself considerably 
in the famous case of the slave Somerset, in which the 
English judges decided that slavery could not exist upon 
the soil of England, several hundred Negroes who were 
liberated in consequence of that decision, but who were 
altogether unaccustomed to the profitable employments 
of a great city, were suddenly thrown upon their own 
resources on the streets of London, and in that helpless 
situation naturally looked to Mr. Sharpe as their friend 
and patron. After much reflection on the part of the 

* There is already a British colony established at Port Essington, 
on the North coast of New Holland ; but I do not know that the 
idea of its becoming a cotton-growing colony has ever been enter- 
tained by its founders. I see no reason why it should not. 



432 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

philanthropist, it was determined to colonize the Negroes 
on the coast of Africa ; and the Government of the day- 
patronizing the undertaking, the establishment of the 
colony of Sierra Leone was the result. In the year 
1787, four hundred negroes and sixty Europeans were 
sent out to establish that colony at the expense of 
Government. In the year 1789, thirty-nine additional 
negroes were forwarded to Sierra Leone ; and in 1791, 
twelve hundred African refugees from Nova Scotia, who 
had fled thither from bondage in the United States during 
the revolutionary war, were also forwarded to that colony, 
at the instance of the venerable Clarkson. A number of 
Maroons from Jamaica were also added to the colony in 
the year 1805, and since the abolition of the Slave 
trade it has been the usual receptacle for the liberated 
victims of that horrible traffic. The population of the 
colony of Sierra Leone is now 40,000. 

Unfortunately for the cause of philanthropy and 
especially for the welfare and advancement of the 
African race, the colony of Sierra Leone has been sub- 
ject all along to the same system of petty jobbing and 
general mismanagement that has hitherto in a greater 
or lesser degree characterised all the trans-marine set- 
tlements of the British empire. Offices of trust and 
emolument have been exclusively in the hands of 
Europeans, who, with only a few honourable exceptions, 
have been men of broken fortunes and questionable cha- 
racter, who look to their offices as a mere source of profit, 
and who set the unfortunate natives the worst possible 
example. The missionary spirit has long been too fee- 
ble in England to supply the requisite number of mis- 
sionaries for so deadly a climate and so unpropitious a 
field as that of Sierra Leone ; the agents of the Church 
Missionary Society in that colony have accordingly been 
principally Germans ; and to the labours and success of 
these missionaries an American Presbyterian missionary 
whom I had recently the pleasure of meeting at Phila- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 433 

delphia, and who had himself been for some time acting 
governor of the neighbouring American colony of 
Liberia, bears the most honourable testimony. 

Still, however, it must be acknowledged that liberated 
negroes from slave ships are but an indifferent species 
of materiel for the planting of a colony ; and it is 
deeply to be regretted that the European machinery of 
the colony of Sierra Leone has hitherto been any thing 
but unexceptionable. Compared with the actual results 
of that benevolent enterprise, the expenditure of life 
and of British money has hitherto been prodigious ; and 
it must be confessed that the African colonists are just 
as far from being fit for self-government as the Bri- 
tish authorities are from being inclined to make the 
experiment. In short, the past history and the present 
condition of the colony of Sierra Leone, after a colonial 
existence of upwards of fifty years, sufficiently demon- 
strate that Great Britain has not the right men for such 
an undertaking, and is therefore not likely to be very 
successful in the great work of colonizing Africa. 

The American colony of Liberia was founded in the 
year 1820. Its object has been variously represented, 
as well by its friends as by its enemies ; but without 
noticing the misapprehensions of the former, or the 
calumnies of the latter, it may be regarded as three- 
fold : 1st, To provide a suitable asylum for the coloured 
men of America, in which they may have all the ad- 
vantages of entire freedom, of a fair field, and of self- 
government, for their own intellectual and moral and 
political advancement ; 2nd, To exert a salutary influ- 
ence over the surrounding tribes of Africa, and thereby 
to extend the reign of civilization and religion over that 
vast continent ; and 3rd, To exert a similar influence on 
the institution of slavery in the United States, and 
thereby to lead to its eventual and speedy abolition. 

The territory of Liberia is situated on the west coast 
of Africa, and extends from Cape Mount to Cape Pal- 

2p 



434 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 



•om 



mas, a distance of 300 miles ; extending inland from 
20 to 50 miles. It is under the general superintend- 
ence of the American Colonization Society ; from whose 
funds — which are derived exclusively from voluntary 
contributions obtained from benevolent persons through- 
out the Union — the salaries of its public officers, and 
the other expenses of the government that are not pro- 
vided from its ordinary revenue, are defrayed. The 
Governor is a white man, a native American, and is 
appointed directly by the Society in America. All the 
other public officers of the colony are coloured men, 
and no white man is eligible either to office or to citizen- 
ship in the territory. The political institutions of the 
colony are all thoroughly republican ; all offices, but 
that of the Governor, being elective, and universal suf- 
frage being extended even to the liberated Africans 
who have been recaptured in slave ships, and settled in 
the colony under the protection of the Government of 
the United States. The laws of the colony are en- 
acred by a Legislative Council, the members of which 
are all elected by the people ; and after receiving the 
Governor's sanction, they are transmitted for the ap- 
proval of the Society in America, as our own colonial 
laws are to the Privy Council in England. 

It is by no means remarkable that the principles of 
this form of government should be but imperfectly un- 
derstood, and its benefits imperfectly appreciated by a 
company of men recently liberated from a captured 
slaver, as a proportion at least of the colonists are ; but 
man is a rational and imitative animal even in his 
lowest form, and it is astonishing how soon he learns 
to act with propriety when he is treated as such, and 
when his sense of justice is appealed to at every step. 
Speaking of the liberated Africans, the historian of the 
colony of Liberia observes : — 

" At Millsburgh there was no good school, and none 
of any kind among the recaptured Africans, except 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 435 

Sunday-schools, which were well attended, and taught 
by their own people, many of whom could read. 

" Each tribe had a house of worship, and a town or 
valaver house built by voluntary subscription and joint 
labour. A street separated the neat and well-built 
villages of the Eboes and Congoes ; their farms adja- 
cent to the village were under excellent cultivation, 
and they were stated to be the most industrious and 
thriving of any people in the colony ; but they had very 
imperfect notions of republican government. They had 
several times attempted to choose a chief without suc- 
cess ; the minority refusing submission to the person 
chosen. This year (1832) they solicited the Colonial 
agent to superintend their election. It was held in his 
presence • and after he had explained to them the 
object of an election, and the necessity of submitting 
to the will of the majority, they appeared perfectly 
satisfied.* 

" These recaptured Africans not unfrequently pro- 
cured wives from the adjacent tribes by paying a small 
sum to the parents. The women thus obtained were 
married and dressed according to the customs of the 
colony, and in a short time adopted the habits of the 
settlers, so as scarcely to be distinguished from those 
who had been several years in the United States."-)* 

In fact, the distinguishing feature of the colony of 
Liberia is, that the colonists are permitted to govern 
themselves, and that their American and republican 

* It is humiliating to think that the Authorities of our own 
country should still think the British Colonists of New South 
Wales unfit to exercise a right, with which the Americans find it 
perfectly safe to intrust the poor creatures who have been but yes- 
terday, as it were, dug out of the hold of a slave ship ! If men are 
not humble in such circumstances, surely they ought to be so. 

f Concise History of the Commencement, Progress, and Present 
Condition of the American Colonies in Liberia. By Samuel Wil- 
kcson, Esq. Washington, 1839. 



436 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

training, the religious character which a large propor- 
tion of them had borne in America previous to their 
emigration, and the direct Christian influence to which 
they are all subjected in Liberia, on the part of the 
numerous corps of ministers of religion and missionaries 
to the heathen, stationed in that colony, enable them 
to discharge the important duties of self-government 
with propriety and success. The " Acts of the Governor 
and Council of Liberia, in Legislature assembled, passed 
at their Session in August and September, 1839, and 
printed by Authority, at Monrovia," would do honour to 
any European nation, and are greatly in advance of the 
political institutions of most of the governments of 
Europe. Their titles are as follows : — 

1. " An Act regulating the judiciary of the Com- 
monwealth of Liberia" — Establishing courts of justice 
on the American model. 

2. " An Act regulating the fees of public officers in 
the Commonwealth of Liberia." 

3. •* An Act regulating Agriculture and internal 
Improvement for the Commonwealth of Liberia." The 
first two sections of this Act are as follows : — 

" Sec. 1 . Be it enacted by the Governor and Legis- 
lature of Liberia, in Council assembled, and it is 
hereby enacted by the authority of the same, — That 
there shall be a standing Committee appointed by the 
Governor and Council for the counties of Montserrado 
and Grand Bassa, to be known as the organs of the 
government in all matters relative to agriculture and 
internal improvement. 

" Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, — That the Com- 
monwealth shall afford assistance to farmers, by pro- 
viding such animals and agricultural implements as 
may be required to carry their operations into effect, 
provided such loans be refunded by two or three in- 
stalments, with three per cent, interest, in three years 
in agricultural produce." 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 437 

4. " An Act regulating the residence of native Afri- 
cans in the Commonwealth of Liberia." The first 
section of this Act is as follows : — 

" Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the Governor and Coun- 
cil in Legislature assembled, — That all native Africans 
who may become residents of this Commonwealth, or 
remain within the limits of the corporation, whether 
minors or adults, shall be compelled to wear clothes, 
under the penalty of being fined in a sum not exceed- 
ing five dollars nor less than one dollar." 

5. " An Act concerning Apprentices." 

6. " An Act constituting and regulating a Post 
Office Department." 

7. " An Act regulating and ordering the building 
and repairs of fortifications." 

8. " An Act regulating the employment and over- 
sight of the Poor" — Establishing asylums and providing 
suitable labour. The first section of this Act is as 
follows : — 

" Sec. 1 . Be it enacted and ordained by the Governor 
and Legislature of Liberia, in Council assembled, — 
That the support and maintenance of aged widows, 
destitute orphans, or poor persons and invalids, shall be 
borne by this Commonwealth out of any monies in the 
Treasury not otherwise appropriated." 

9. " An Act relating to Government Offices, &e." 
— Appropriating 3000 dollars for continuing the build- 
ing of a jail, and 500 for that of a lighthouse. 

10. "A Bill to establish a Circulating Medium," 
&c. — Fixing the rate of interest at 6 per cent., &c. 

11. " An Act to regulate the Militia of this Com- 
monwealth." — Authorising the appointment of a Com- 
mander in Chief, a Brigadier-General, and four regi- 
ments of Militia whenever the colony shall require that 
number. The present militia force is of course smaller. 

12. " An Act regulating Common Schools." — The 
first section of this act is as follows : — 

2 p2 



438 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

" Sec. 1 . Be it enacted by the Governor and Coun- 
cil of the Commonwealth of Liberia, in Legislature as- 
sembled, — That there shall be established in each set- 
tlement and township, that is or hereafter may be 
formed in this Commonwealth, one common school ; 
the same to be under the supervision or control of a 
School Committee, to be created for that purpose by the 
Governor and Council." 

By a subsequent section, the fees for education in 
these schools are not to exceed three dollars per 
annum. 

13. "A Bill to prevent fraud in the management 
of intestate and other estates." 

14. " An Act to provide regulations for the coun- 
ties and towns in the Commonwealth of Liberia." 

15. " An Act legalizing marriages, and legitimating 
illegitimate children." — By this law the solemn ac- 
knowledgment of the parties before the Clerk of the 
Court of Quarter Sessions, is held as legal evidence of 
a marriage — as in Scotland. 

16. "A Bill for the regulation of the towns and 
villages in this Commonwealth." — Under this act a 
census is ordered, "so as justly to apportion the rates of 
representation to the Legislative Council to be held in 
the year 1841." 

1 7. " An Act regulating the commerce and revenue 
of the Commonwealth of Liberia." — The first section of 
this act is as follows :— 

" Sec. 1 . Be it enacted by the Governor and Coun- 
cil of the Commonwealth of Liberia, in Legislature as- 
sembled, — That from and after this date, the importa- 
tion of all and every kind, species, or quality of ardent 
spirits into the Commonwealth, be and the same is 
hereby prohibited, excepting in such quantities as may 
be absolutely necessary for the medical department. 
A committee, to consist of the Governor, — or, in his 
absence, the Lieutenant-Governor, — the Physicians, 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 439 

and the Apothecary, shall determine from time to time, 
what quantities of alcohol and other kinds of ardent 
spirits may be required for the use of that department, 
and the care of all such ardent spirits shall be com- 
mitted to the Apothecary, who shall not allow it to go 
out of his charge on any pretext whatever, unless by 
regular prescription from a physician." 

Previous to the year 1839, the different settlements of 
the colony of Liberia were each under separate manage- 
ment and independent of each other. In the course of 
last year, however, these settlements were all consoli- 
dated under one general Government, and the preceding 
general enactments were therefore in part merely the 
re-enactment of local regulations previously in force, 
and their adaptation to the whole colony. The Go- 
vernor is a Mr. Buchanan, of Philadelphia, a gentleman 
eminently qualified in every respect for the important 
office he holds, of great energy and decision of character, 
and perfectly enthusiastic in the cause of Africa and 
the African race. As slavery and slave-trading are 
utterly prohibited in Liberia, Mr. Buchanan was desirous, 
before embarking for the colony, of being informed by 
one of the most influential of the Directors of the Colo- 
nization Enterprise, what he should do in the event of 
any slave-traders establishing themselves within the 
limits of the colony. " Root them out of it," was the 
brief reply. " But if they offer resistance ?" added the 
Governor-elect. " Blow them sky-high," was the an- 
swer of the American. Mr. Buchanan had accordingly 
scarcely reached his government, when he was informed 
that a French slave-trader had just fixed himself in one 
of the rivers of the colony, and had erected a factory 
or store, and landed a large quantity of goods to 
barter for slaves. The Governor immediately sent him 
a notice to quit ; but the slave-trader refusing to obey, 
a party of the Colonial Militia was despatched, under a 
trustworthy officer, to root him out, and to seize or de- 



440 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

stroy his property. And this service was accomplished 
so effectually, that the slave-trade has been completely 
annihilated along the whole coast of Liberia. 

It would be out of place, in this brief sketch, to enter 
into a minute detail of the circumstances connected 
with the establishment of this most interesting colony — 
the great and serious difficulties which it met with at its 
outset ; the apathy and indifference it experienced from 
its professed friends, and the virulent opposition it has 
hitherto encountered from its enemies. I may observe, 
however, that the state of things arising from these 
difficulties, has proved singularly favourable to the real 
welfare and advancement of the colony ; as it checked 
the emigration of many unsuitable persons, who might 
otherwise have flocked to it in great numbers, and ren- 
dered it necessary for the Directors to exercise the ut- 
most vigilance in the selection of colonists. The result 
of this vigilance is apparent in the superior character, 
as to morals and religion, of the inhabitants of Li- 
beria, of which I shall subjoin a few notices from recent 
publications. 

The following extract, exhibiting the rapid progress 
and the present condition of the colony, is from a pam- 
phlet entitled " Colonization and Abolition Contrasted," 
by the Rev. Calvin Colton. 

" In 1825, the population of Liberia, the fifth year of 
its history, was 400 souls. In 1833, there had been 
3123 immigrants, including 400 re-captured Africans; 
and the population was 2916. In 1838, the immigra- 
tions, also including all the recaptured Africans to that 
date, had been somewhat less than 4500 ; the actual 
population exceeded 5000. We believe there is no 
other instance of colonization recorded in history, where 
the first settlers suffered so little of fatal casualty. 
There are now four Colonial Jurisdictions, under a new 
Federal Government organized in 1839; twelve flour- 
ishing towns, Monrovia, the metropolis of the common- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 441 

wealth, having a population of 1500 ; there are four 
churches at Monrovia, two at New Georgia, two at 
Caldwell, two at Millsburgh, two at Edina, three at 
Bassa Cove, two at Marshall, two at Cape Palmas, and 
one other — in all twenty ; forty clergymen distributed 
among them, and several missionaries among the Pagans 
within and without the jurisdiction of the Common- 
wealth, with their religious and educational establish- 
ments ; the children and youth are generally well pro- 
vided with schools ; there are several public libraries, 
one of 1200 to 1500 vols. ; a public press and two 
newspapers ; a regularly constituted and well-ordered 
government ; a competent military ; an increasing 
trade with Europe and America ; — in short, a good de- 
gree of civilization and prosperity. * The militia,' 
Governor Buchanan represents as ' well organized, 
efficient, and enthusiastic ;' and the * volunteer corps,' 
he says, 'would lose nothing by comparison with the city 
guards of Philadelphia.' The morals of the people are 
spoken of by the governor as better than in any equal 
portion of the United States. ' More than one-fifth of 
the population are communicants in their respective 
churches, and exemplary Christians' — a greater propor- 
tion, we presume, than can be found in any other part 
of Christendom. ' As might be expected, where so 
large a portion of the people are pious, the general tone 
of society is religious. Nowhere is the Sabbath more 
strictly observed, or the places of worship better at- 
tended.'" 

The ministers of religion and missionaries to the 
heathen abovementioned, are all of one or other of the 
four leading denominations of the United States ; their 
relative numbers being in the following order, Metho- 
dists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopalians. By 
these bodies the same benevolent objects that engage 
the attention of Christian churches elsewhere, are pu?- 



442 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

sued in the same manner and with equal success. In 
the Methodist church in Monrovia, a public meeting 
was held on the 17th of October, 1839, to obtain sub- 
scriptions and donations for the Centenary Fund of the 
Methodists ; and the sum of 44 7|- dollars, or upwards of 
£95 sterling, was contributed on the spot, independently 
of the contributions of the other Methodist congrega- 
tions in other parts of the colony. It would seem, 
therefore, that the Voluntary System is not less efficient 
in sustaining the ordinances of religion in Africa than 
it is in America. And if it is found sufficient for this 
purpose in a community of negroes, most of whom were 
very recently slaves, will any person, who has the slight- 
est respect for himself as a white man, venture to assert 
that it would not be equally efficient in England, if the 
Englishman only enjoyed the same freedom of religion 
as the African colonists of Liberia ? The Treasurer of 
the Centenary Fund at Monrovia, on the occasion re- 
ferred to, was S. Benedict, Esq., Chief Justice of Liberia, 
who for many years had himself been a slave at Savan- 
nah, in Georgia. Having a benevolent master, however, 
who afforded him many opportunities of self-improve- 
ment, he had given himself a superior education, and 
his private library, when he emigrated to Liberia with 
all his children and grandchildren, amounted to upwards 
of 1000 volumes. The Methodists have seven schools, 
containing altogether 254 pupils, and the other deno- 
minations are fast following in their train. 

The influence of the ministers of religion in Liberia 
is by no means confined to the colonists. One of them, 
who is stationed at a place called Heddington, among 
the native Africans of the country, observes in a letter, 
of date September 26, 1839, published in the " African 
Repository" of March last ; " Under God, I have charge 
of one of the most interesting little flocks that God has 
iu all the world. This flock consists of 59 native con- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION, 443 

verts, all of whom, I have the fullest confidence, have 
met with a Gospel change of heart, and all of whom 
were converted in the mission-house." 

There is a Temperance Society at Monrovia, a La- 
dies' Benevolent Society, of which the Fourth Annual 
Report was recently published, and an An ti- Tobacco 
Society ! The cultivation of sugar and coffee has been 
introduced into the colony, and the trade of Monrovia 
is advancing so rapidly, that not fewer than 23 vessels 
had arrived in the port from the 27th of October to the 
7 th of December last. In regard to the general pro- 
gress of the settlement, the following extract of a 
despatch from Governor Buchanan, of date May 17, 
1839, giving an account of a rapid tour he had just 
made through the colony, sufficiently demonstrates its 
steady advancement in real prosperity. 

" I was very much gratified, in passing up the St. 
Paul's River, to see the extent of improvements since 
my last visit, three years since. From New Georgia 
to Millsburgh, a distance of about seventeen miles, the 
right bank of the river exhibits an almost continuous 
line of cultivated farms ; many of them, too, of con- 
siderable size. The opposite shore still wears the rich 
foliage of the unbroken forest, and presents one of the 
most beautiful specimens of native scenery ; but, though 
ever charmed with the luxuriant drapery of an African 
forest, I must say there was, in this case, something in 
the appearance of the right bank, with its line of neat 
cottages, the waving fields of rice and corn, and even 
in the blackened clearing just preparing for the seed of 
the husbandman, more cheering to my feelings than all 
the wild beauties with which nature has so profusely 
embellished this sunny land." 

" Millsburgh is pleasantly situated, and exhibits a 
highly picturesque appearance from almost every point 
of view. It has but one street which runs parallel 



444 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

with the river, and is about a mile and a half long. 
This street is neatly turnpiked and bordered the whole 
distance, on both sides, with plantain and banana trees, 
which throw over it an air at once refreshing and orna- 
mental. Judging from the neat and thrifty appearance 
of the houses, and the highly-cultivated enclosures, I 
should say there are none but independent people in 
this beautiful settlement ; and, indeed, all my inquiries 
confirmed this first impression. Of course, I use the 
word independent in a moderate sense. There were 
about four thousand bushels of potatoes raised here 
last year, besides corn, cassada, rice, and various garden 
vegetables. This year, there is, both at Millsburgh and 
along the whole line of the St. Paul's, at least ten 
times the quantity of corn planted that has been in any 
former year." 

In regard to the settlements of Bassa Cove and 
Edina, the Governor remarks, in speaking of the indus- 
try of the inhabitants of these colonies, " Since the first 
of January last, not less than two hundred or two hundred 
and fifty acres of new land had been cleared in the two 
settlements, and the business of clearing and planting 
was still going on with a vigour that astonished me." 

But the most important and gratifying circumstance 
in the efforts of the American Colonization Society, is, 
the stimulus they have given to voluntary emancipa- 
tion in the United States, by demonstrating the prac- 
ticability of elevating the African race to the rank of 
civilized and Christian men. Captain Ross, an extensive 
proprietor in the State of Mississippi, lately deceased, 
ordered the whole of his slaves, to the number of nearly 
200, to be liberated, and sent to Africa, at his death ; 
leaving the whole of his estate, amounting to upwards 
of 200,000 dollars, for the defraying of the expense of 
their outfit and passage to Africa, for their settlement 
in the colony, and for the establishment of seminaries 
of learning in Liberia. 



AND AFHICAN COLONIZATION. 445 

Of the whole number of emigrants to Liberia, per 
the Society's ship " Saluda," during the past year, 122 
had previously been slaves, all of whom were liberated 
by their masters, and most of them provided, in addi- 
tion, with outfit and passage-money to Liberia. One 
of these slaves had cost his master a thousand dollars. 
One of them was a Moravian preacher ; the rest were 
chiefly mechanics and farm-labourers, of reputable cha- 
racter and industrious habits. Thirteen of them had 
been emancipated by a Mr. Johnson, of Virginia. They 
were all the slaves he had ; and, it is added, " he had 
for years contemplated their liberation, and with great 
diligence had applied himself to their religious in- 
struction, and otherwise prepared them for their free- 
dom. The husband of one of them he had purchased 
from a neighbour, with a view to his liberation ; and, 
with great effort, (for it seems he was not wealthy,) he 
had defrayed the whole expenses of their journey, ac- 
companying them himself to Washington, and contri- 
buting 450 dollars for their outfit to Liberia."* 

In the year 1831, the Legislature of Maryland, re- 
cognising the great benefits that had already resulted, 
and were likely to result, from the scheme of African 
Colonization, appropriated 20,000 dollars per annum, 
for ten years, to assist in promoting the object ; and, 
during the first eight years thereafter, not fewer than 
1867 slaves were manumitted in that State alone. In 
short, I am decidedly of opinion, that there is nothing 
more intimately connected with the universal emanci- 
pation of the African race in America, than the welfare 
and progressive advancement of the colony of Liberia. 

In the course of last year, an extensive proprietor 
in the colony of British Guiana, residing in Liverpool, 

* African Repository and Colonial Journal. Washington, 
March, 1840. 

2 Q 



44G SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

conceiving, from the representations of the Aboli- 
tionists, that the only object of the Colonization So- 
ciety was to get rid of the American Africans, wrote to 
Judge Wilkeson, the General Agent of the Society, 
proposing that they should be sent to British Guiana, 
rather than to Africa, and offering to employ a large 
number of them himself. The following is an extract 
from Judge Wilkeson's reply, of date Buffalo, New 
York, Sept. 9, 1839 ; and, from my own acquaintance 
with that gentleman, I am confident it expresses the 
sentiments of his heart. 

" The inducements offered by the West India planters 
to the American coloured labourer principally relate to 
his physical comfort, and contemplate a dependent and 
servile condition, in which he will be estimated in pro- 
portion to the amount of labour which he performs. 
But the American Colonization Society, regarding his 
moral and intellectual being, and believing that nation- 
ality of character is indispensable to the highest eleva- 
tion of the human mind, have aimed to establish a free 
and independent commonwealth, composed entirely of 
Africans, on their own patrimonial soil — to give them 
a chance to rise in the social state, according to their 
own merits as a distinct people. Every where in con- 
nexion with Europeans, the African, whether bond or 
free, seems destined to a subordinate and menial con- 
dition. If he should even fall heir to the highest 
blessings anticipated by the British Emancipation Act, 
he could never hope to rise to a social equality with his 
European employers. But in Liberia he knows no 
superior, and is influenced by the most ennobling 
motives of action — there he cultivates his own soil, 
prosecutes his own trade and commerce, administers 
laws which he himself has made, and fills the highest 
offices of Church and State. All history seems to have 
proved that there is little chance of the African's doing 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 447 

himself justice, in the same society with Europeans. 
We despair of it amongst ourselves. For aught we 
can see, their only and perhaps last hope of rising to 
equality in the social state, and of developing those 
powers which dignify humanity, hangs suspended on 
some such enterprise as that in which we are engaged. 
Certainly there is no other such opportunity now open 
to the race. Every where else, they are either in a 
state of barbarism or degradation. But in the com- 
monwealth of Liberia, they constitute a civilised and 
Christian community, without admixture, and there 
already they begin to show the higher and more com- 
manding powers of man ; there they breathe the air 
of freedom, and enjoy the advantages of social and po- 
litical equality ; and there they know that empire is 
their own, and may be extended at their option." 

" I may also add, that, in sending our beneficiaries 
to the British West Indies for the purposes you pro- 
pose, we should not, in my opinion, satisfy the feeling 
which prompted and has sustained the scheme of colo- 
nization in Africa, and, consequently, we should be 
likely to paralyse that public spirit which is engaged in 
this enterprise. If we subtract from it the aim of ele- 
vating the character, and securing the social and po- 
litical rights of a people so long depressed both at 
home and in foreign lands, we shall take away and 
crush the soul of the undertaking. I think, Sir, that it 
would be impossible to sustain our Society among the 
American people, for any object less than this. It is 
not a political or commercial, but a benevolent scheme, 
and, as such, must have its high and inspiring motives. 
It is for the most part a Christian effort, and will not 
be satisfied simply with the temporal weal of its bene- 
ficiaries. It has still higher and more extended aims, 
It seeks, through the influence of its colonies, to intro- 
duce Christian civilization among the native tribes. It 



448 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

looks to Africa as an open field, inviting effort for the 
spiritual as well as the social regeneration of the many 
millions of her sons and daughters."* 

Such, then, is the scheme of benevolence — a scheme 
which is sustained by so large an amount of Christian 
philanthropy, which is guided by so much practical 
wisdom, and which promises such magnificent results 
both for Africa and America — that the Abolitionists on 
both sides of the Atlantic denounce with a fierceness 
of intolerance, and an unrestrained license of invective, 
which, in my estimation at least, go far to demonstrate 
that, if they are in the right track themselves, they are, 
at all events, pursuing it in the wrong way. The 
" great Philanthropist" has said, " Whosoever will be 
my disciple " — that is, will be a true philanthropist — 
" let Mm deny himself" Now, I am sorry to say, that 
I have seen very little of this divine quality in much 
of the professed philanthropy of the present day, with- 
out even excepting the philanthropy of Abolition. Show 
me men like Mr. Johnson, of Virginia, whose philan- 
thropy is an affair of great personal sacrifice and 
serious cost, and I shall most willingly acknowledge 
them as genuine philanthropists ; but I confess I am 
exceedingly sceptical as to much of the philanthropy 
that has no such origin or accompaniment. 

As this little volume may possibly find its way even 
to Virginia, I would earnestly recommend the example 
of Mr. Johnson to the general imitation of the slave- 
holders of that State. Virginia has already earned, on 
two different grounds, the gratitude of mankind. She 
has given the world a Washington. She has established 
that system of entire religious freedom, which is now 



* African Repository and Colonial Journal. Washington, 
January, 1840. 



AND AFltlCAN COLONIZATION. 449 

universally enjoyed in America, and of which the be- 
nefits and the blessings can only be appreciated where 
they are practically known. She has yet one effort 
more to make, to earn for herself a triple crown of 
glory. Let her emancipate her slaves. Let her wipe 
off this reproach from her otherwise fair character. 
Let her stand forth once more as the example of all 
that is great and glorious, to America and the world ! 

In regard to the reproach which is so frequently cast 
by the Abolitionists on the friends of African Coloniza- 
tion, that they are opposed to the abolition of slavery, 
I am confident that, in the case of the men who con- 
stitute the life and soul of that undertaking, there is no 
foundation for the charge. Can Dr. Breckinridge, of 
Baltimore, who, with his two brothers, emancipated the 
whole of the slaves left them by their father, be sup- 
posed to be desirous of perpetuating slavery ? The 
idea is absurd. Dr. B. is a warm friend and advocate 
of the scheme of colonization ; and yet I have never 
seen a stronger denunciation of the whole system of 
slavery than is contained in a pamphlet of his, on the 
subject, entitled " Hints on Colonization and Abolition." 
In that pamphlet, however, there is the following sen- 
tence, which, as I consider it unquestionably true, I would 
earnestly recommend to the consideration of all whom 
it concerns. " We speak from the deepest conviction 
when we say, that, in our judgment, the Abolitionists 
in America have done more to rivet the chains of 
slavery, than all its open advocates have done." 

" What, then, is slavery ?" asks Dr. Breckinridge, in 
the able and eloquent pamphlet to which I have just 
referred. " It is that condition enforced by the laws of 
one half the States of this confederacy, in which one 
portion of the community called masters, is allowed such 
power over another portion called Slaves, as 

" 1 . To deprive them of the entire earnings of their 
2 q 2 



450 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

own labour, except only so much as is necessary to con- 
tinue labour itself, by continuing healthful existence ; 
thus committing clear robbery. 

" 2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal 
concubinage, by denying to them the civil rights of 
marriage ; thus breaking up the dearest relations of life, 
and encouraging universal prostitution. 

"3. To deprive them of the means and opportuni- 
ties of moral and intellectual culture, in many States 
making it a high penal offence to teach them to read ; 
thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that proceeds 
from ignorance. 

" 4. To set up between parents and their children an 
authority higher than the impulse of nature and the 
laws of God ; which breaks up the authority of the 
father over his own offspring, and, at pleasure, separates 
the mother at a returnless distance from her child ; thus 
abrogating the clearest laws of nature — thus outraging 
all decency and justice, and degrading and oppressing 
thousands upon thousands of beings created like them- 
selves in the image of the most High God." 

" This is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every Slave- 
state. This is that ' dreadful but unavoidable neces- 
sity/ for which you may hear so many mouths uttering 
excuses in all parts of the land. And is it really so ? 
If indeed it be, if that ' necessity' which tolerates this 
condition be really 'unavoidable? in any such sense 
that we are constrained for one moment to put off the 
course of conduct which shall most certainly and most 
effectually subvert a system which is utterly indefensi- 
ble on every correct human principle, and utterly ab- 
horrent from every law of God ; then, indeed, let 
Ichabod be graven in letters of terrific light upon our 
country ! For God can no more sanction such per- 
petual wrong, than he can cease to be faithful to the 
dignity and glory of his own throne." 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 451 

And again — " Slavery cannot endure. The just, 
and generous, and enlightened hearts and minds of 
those who own the slaves, will not allow the system to 
endure. State after State, the example has caught and 
spread. New England, New York, the Middle States 
on the Sea Board, one after another, have taken the 
question up, and decided it all alike. The state of 
Slavery is ruinous to the community that tolerates it, 
under all possible circumstances, and is most cruel and 
unjust to its victims. No community that can be in- 
duced to examine the question, will, if it be wise, allow 
such a canker in its vitals ; nor, if it be just, will per- 
mit such wrong. We argue from the nature of the 
case, and the constitution of man ; we speak from the 
experience of the States already named ; we judge 
from what is passing before us in the range of States 
along the Slave-line in Maryland, Virginia, and Ken- 
tucky; from the state of feeling on this subject in 
foreign countries, and from the existing state of opinion 
throughout the world. The very owners of slaves will 
themselves, and that, we hope, at no distant day, put an 
end to the system. 

" But more than all, He who is higher than the highest 
will, in his own good time and way, break the rod of the 
oppressor, and let all the oppressed go free." 

After showing that the Abolition-agitation had noto- 
riously failed of its object, and materially injured the 
cause which it desired to advance, Dr. B. proceeds as 
follows : — 

" What then shall we say ? Let the abolitionist 
give up his cause as impossible of execution, ruinous to 
the cause of the blacks, and founded upon principles 
wrong in themselves. Let the colonizationists no 
longer make excuses for Slavery, which too many have 
done ; but acknowledging the evils of that wretched 
system, and taking for granted, as from the beginning, 



452 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

that it was so bad, men only needed to see their way 
clear to break it up, let us lay open before the pub- 
lic, in the practical operations of our cause, the great 
and effectual door which God has set for the deliverance 
of this country, for the regeneration of Africa, and for 
the redemption of the black race. The second of those 
great objects is, with ordinary faithfulness and prudence 
in conducting the affairs of the society and the colony, 
already rendered nearly certain. Freedom, and religion, 
and civilized life have been transplanted, in the persons 
of her own sons, into that desolate continent ; and we 
commit to God the issue on which his own glory is so 
deeply staked. What the Colonization Society is now 
doing, would, at the end of a single century, if con- 
tinued at the same rate, exhibit more than a million of 
persons in Liberia, as the fruits of its operations. That 
colony will be a nation, powerful and respected, before 
this generation passes entirely away. Those are now 
alive who will yet see her banner float proudly over the 
mighty outline of an empire." 

Of the numerous Religious Societies that held their 
anniversary meetings in New York, in the month of 
May last, the only one at which the interest was suf- 
ficient to require an adjourned meeting was, the African 
Colonization Society. I was present on the occasion ; 
and, having been requested to take a part in the pro- 
ceedings, I delivered an Address, explanatory of my 
own views on the subject, of which the following is the 
substance, and with which I shall close this volume : — 

" Address at the Annual Meeting of the American 
Colonization Society, held in the Middle Dutch 
Church, New York, 13th May, 1840. 

" As it may seem somewhat remarkable that a fo- 
reigner, and especially a foreigner from England, should 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 453 

appear on this platform to advocate the cause of this 
Society, while he has remained as a mere spectator, 
undistinguished among the multitude, at the anniver- 
saries of all the other religious and benevolent societies 
of your land ; I have only to state, in explanation of the 
circumstance, that, as a citizen of the world, I have 
long regarded the enterprise of this Society as one of 
the noblest in its character, and one of the most im- 
portant in its probable results, of all the enterprises of 
benevolence that characterise the present age. For 
the last ten years, I have read with the deepest interest 
whatever intelligence on the subject has, at any time, 
reached the distant land where Divine Providence has 
appointed my own lot; and instead of regarding the many 
discouragements and disappointments that marked the 
outset of the undertaking, or the apathy and indif- 
ference which it has experienced, from almost all 
quarters, in its progress, or the long-continued and 
virulent opposition with which it has hitherto had to 
struggle — instead of looking upon any of these things 
as a ground of despair, in regard to the enterprise of 
your Society, I have always regarded them as one of 
the best earnests of its ultimate success. My own ex- 
perience, for the last eighteen years, in a far distant 
and somewhat different field of philanthropic labour, has 
taught me to lay it down as a fixed maxim, for my own 
future guidance in the world, that, in any undertaking 
which has for its object the glory of God and the good 
of mankind, disappointment and opposition in the outset 
are always the best earnest of prosperity in the end. 
' He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious 
seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bring- 
ing his sheaves with him.' Indeed, if the enterprise 
of your Society were not likely to prove, ultimately, 
disastrous to the interests of the Prince of Darkness, 
and to the permanence and stability of his kingdom in 



454 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

the world, there is reason to believe he would not have 
made such a stir, in all quarters, to put it down. We 
read in Scripture of Satan transforming himself into an 
angel of light : it is no new thing, therefore, to see him 
arrayed against this Society, in the garb of philan- 
thropy. 

" I am well aware that the opposition which this So- 
ciety has experienced has arisen, in great measure, from 
a suspicion of its being favourable to slavery, as a civil 
institution, and unfriendly to its discontinuance or abo- 
lition. Now, I will not deny that there may be men 
of such sentiments as these in connexion with this So- 
ciety : but I should like to know what Society, having 
a benevolent object, does not include among its mem- 
bers men who labour in its peculiar field from the most 
questionable motives. It is an evil incident to the 
best of causes, under the present constitution of things, 
that men should be found labouring for their promotion 
or advancement, for the most exceptionable ends. It 
is recorded of Amaziah, one of the kings of Judah, that 
he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, 
but not with a perfect heart. Now, if men are 
doing what is right in the sight of the Lord, as I con- 
sider the enterprise of this Society to be, it is the Di- 
vine prerogative, and no business of ours, to investigate 
their motives. For we know well, that the All-wise 
Governor of the Universe often employs men's actions 
for the accomplishment of the very opposite ends to 
those they are aiming at themselves. 

" But if I believed that connexion with this Society 
necessarily implied a tacit approval of the institu- 
tion of slavery, and a secret desire for its continuance, 
I trust no consideration whatever should have induced 
me to appear on this platform as an advocate of its 
cause. I trust I am under no obligation to conceal 
from this assembly my own cordial abhorrence of 
slavery, as a civil institution, and my own earnest de- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 455 

sire for its immediate and entire abolition. I have ever 
regarded slavery as an evil and bitter thing for the 
country in which it exists, as well as for its miserable 
victims. It is the grand calamity of this country, that 
such a system was entailed upon it from a bygone age. 
It constitutes the only dark spot in your star-spangled 
banner — the only gloomy and portentous cloud in the 
firmament of your glory. And as such a system can- 
not exist in any country, without a high degree of cri- 
minality in the sight of God, it is unquestionable that, 
unless they who have the power shall adopt effectual 
means for its speedy and entire discontinuance, the 
vials oft cdte wrath will eventually be poured out, in 
some form or other, on their guilty land. 

" But the question is, how is this object to be ad- 
vanced ? Now, it has always appeared to me, that 
there is no question as to the part which a Christian 
man ought to take in the matter. The character of the 
Divine Author of our holy religion, as well as of the 
influence which that religion has uniformly exerted in 
the world these eighteen hundred years, is described 
in these words, ' He shall not strive nor cry, neither 
shall his voice be heard in the streets.' And such, 
precisely, is the influence which this Society exerts, in 
direct opposition to the practice of those who would 
use threatening and violence for the accomplishment of 
their object. Convince the slaveholders of the high 
capabilities of the African race ; convince them that 
they will be more profitable to themselves, and better 
far for their country, as freemen, than as slaves ; ex- 
hibit them transformed into an enlightened and Chris- 
tian people, rejoicing not only in the possession of civil 
liberty, but in the enjoyment of that higher liberty 
wherewith Christ makes his people free, — and emanci- 
pation will not only become general, but slavery will 
be abolished. 

" Now, this is just what this Society has been en- 



456 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

deavouring to do, and what it has hitherto been doing 
well — beyond the highest anticipations. In short, I 
have all along regarded the influence of this Society — 
contemptible as it has hitherto appeared in the eye of 
the world — as somewhat like the barley-cake in the 
Midianite's dream, which, you will recollect, fell so 
heavily upon the tents of Midian, that it overturned 
them all. I have all along regarded the enterprise of 
this Society as destined, in the good Providence of 
God, to accomplish a great moral revolution in this 
land, by revolutionising the understanding and the will 
of the slaveholder, and by inducing him of his own 
accord to break every yoke, and to let the oppressed 
go free. 

" The influence of this Society in regard to the aboli- 
tion of slavery, as compared with that of the Society 
which, by an obvious misnomer, is styled the Abolition 
Society, has always appeared to me like that of the sun, 
in the fable of the sun and the wind. These two 
powerful agents, you will doubtless recollect, were once 
contending for the superiority ; and it was determined, 
as a trial of strength, to exert their influence succes- 
sively on a traveller who was seen trudging across a 
plain, muffled up in a cloak ; the palm of victory to be 
given to the contending party who should soonest 
oblige the traveller to throw off his cloak. The trial 
commenced with the wind, which blew with violence, 
and made the traveller pull his cloak tightly around 
him. The wind blew still more violently, and the 
traveller drew his cloak still more closely around him, 
tucking up its skirts, and binding them tightly around 
his person ; and the more fiercely the wind blew, the 
more firmly did the traveller hold by his cloak. At 
length the sun shone out, and darting his piercing rays 
upon the traveller, the latter slowly unclasped his cloak, 
and as it waxed hotter, he threw it off altogether.* 

As the Rev. Joel Parker, who addressed the meeting of the 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 457 

"Exactly similar is the influence of the two Societies 
that profess to deal with slavery in this country. The 
Abolitionists assail the slave-holder with threatenings 
and violence, denouncing him as a monster in human 
form, and an enemy of the human race. They array 
against him the powers and influence of society. They 
menace him with a species of warfare both from with- 
out and from within, if he refuses to yield at discre- 
tion. And what is the result of all this ? Why, the 
slave-holders band together for the maintenance of the 
enormous system by which they live. They lay a 
heavier yoke of laws and ordinances upon the unfortu- 
nate negro, and make his burden still more intolerable 
than before. They guard all the approaches to their 
country against the influence of the Abolitionist, and 
stop up the very streams of knowledge lest they convey 
enlightenment to the slave. In short, with all their 
honest violence, the Abolitionists do not appear to 
have advanced a single step towards the ultimate at- 
tainment of their object, but have rather aggravated 
and embittered the bondage of the negro, and con- 
firmed the determination of his master to hold him 
as a slave. 

" But the influence of this Society is of a totally dif- 
ferent kind. It does not profess to interfere with the 
existing institutions of society in the slave States, in- 
iquitous as these institutions confessedly are. It leaves 
them to the gentler influence of public opinion, en- 
lightened by Christianity, and to the growing conviction 
of their utter impolicy, as well as of their gross in- 

Colonization Society before me in a very able speech, happened to 
make use of the illustration of the sun and the wind in the very 
same manner as I had proposed to do, I omitted the passage con- 
taining that allusion in my address. It was singular that the same 
idea should have occurred to two disinterested observers so differ- 
ently circumstanced. — Mr. Parker spoke from his own recollections 
of Louisiana and New Orleans ; my ideas were the result of my own 
recent observations in various parts of the Union. 

2 R 



458 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

justice. Instead of arming the negro against his master, 
and steeling the hearts of both against each other, it 
endeavours to create kindly feelings between them, and 
to make the master instrumental in raising the slave to 
the rank and privileges of a freeman. It exhibits the 
emancipated slave in this condition in the land of his 
fathers, surrounded by all the comforts of civilization, 
discharging all its duties, and enjoying all its honours 
and advantages. And it silently appeals to the under- 
standing and the heart of the slave-holder, saying, 
1 Such are the men whom you are still retaining in 
chains and slavery. Such is the high rank for which 
God has evidently designed and fitted them among his 
intelligent creatures, but which you are doing all in 
your power to prevent their ever attaining ; thus calling 
down upon your own heads the just vengeance of God 
and the reprobation of men.' 

" I am well aware that most extravagant ideas have 
been entertained by individuals among the friends of 
this Society in regard to the likelihood of its eventually 
removing the whole of the coloured race from the 
United States to Africa. Such an idea can only be 
entertained by a madman, and I certainly do not hold 
your Society responsible for it in any way. The vast 
number of the African race in the Southern States, and 
their rapid increase, compared with the necessarily slow 
progress of all colonies both in population and in re- 
sources, preclude the possibility of such a removal even 
if it were desired. At the same time, if the Society 
should prove successful in its main object — and I am 
happy to state that, in my estimation at least, it has 
succeeded beyond the highest expectations — the volun- 
tary emigration of coloured persons from the United 
States to Africa will soon be tenfold, nay, perhaps, a 
hundredfold greater than it is now. Only let them 
hear of the welfare and prosperity of their brethren in 
the land of their fathers ; only let them see their ships 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 459 

frequenting your harbours, and their flag respectable 
and respected in your ports ; only let them see their 
consuls and other government agents stationed in your 
cities, and holding their proper place in society, and 
multitudes will, of their own accord, go forth to join 
them in their emigration. Your means of conveyance 
will then be too limited, and the resources of your 
colony too confined for the thousands and the tens of 
thousands who will then be willing to embark for Africa 
to join their friends and brethren in their great, and 
honourable, and glorious undertaking. 

" To any man who gives the subject the slightest con- 
sideration, it must be evident that * He who fixeth the 
bounds of men's habitations,' has, in a peculiar manner, 
assigned the great continent of Africa to the negro 
race, and designed it as the principal scene of their 
moral and intellectual elevation. With the exception 
of a comparatively small extent of country at its north- 
ern and southern extremities, Africa has ever been the 
grave-yard of the white man ; in which he breathes an 
atmosphere of death, and stalks along for a few weeks, 
or months, or years, with a sickly and cadaverous car- 
case, and drops at length into an untimely grave. 
Divine Providence has, as it were, stationed an angel 
on the coast of Africa, with a flaming sword in his hand, 
to say to the white man, * Hitherto shalt thou come, 
and no further ;' and the penalty of venturing on the 
forbidden ground in the face of this prohibition is 
death ! But the negro flourishes in this region ; all 
his powers both of body and mind are there capable of 
their highest and healthiest development — in one word, 
it is his own, his father-land. 

" But independently of the indirect but certain in- 
fluence of the operations of this Society in extinguish- 
ing slavery in the United States, it is well calculated to 
exert a mighty and a highly salutary influence in Africa 
itself. The colonization of Africa by civilized andl 



460 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

Christian men of the African race, affords the only 
prospect that there is for the extinction of the slave 
trade. All the treaties that Great Britain and America 
may make with all the civilized nations of the earth 
will never avail to put down this accursed traffic so 
long as things remain as they are at present. The Slave- 
trade will be continued in spite of every effort to put it 
down, till Africa is extensively colonized by civilized 
and Christian men of her own stock and lineage — by 
her own children's children. The insatiable cupidity of 
the white man will induce him to run every hazard, and 
to brave every ordinance of every government upon earth; 
and when successful in carrying his unlawful cargo 
across the horrors of the middle passage to the place 
of his destination, the very governments that sign the 
treaties for the extinction of the slave-trade, will wink 
at their violation. 

" A striking instance of this happened to fall under 
my own observation during the past year. On my 
voyage from New South Wales to England, I happened 
to spend a few days in the large city of Pernambuco, 
in the Brazils, where our vessel touched for water and 
refreshments. During our stay a schooner arrived from 
the coast of Africa, and was pointed out to me in the 
harbour by an English gentleman residing in the city. 
Her whole cargo, as was duly certified in the Alfandega, 
or Custom House return, was fifteen butts of water ; 
but the fact was — and that fact was well known to the 
authorities of the place — she had brought over a cargo 
of slaves, in direct contravention of the treaty with 
England, and had landed them a few miles off on the 
coast ! In short, there is no prospect whatever of the 
ultimate extinction of the slave-trade, so long as Africa 
remains in the hands of its petty barbarian chiefs. 
These men will just continue to do as they have ever 
done for the last three hundred years — to wage inces- 
sant war with each other, and to spread ruin and de- 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 461 

solation over the length and breadth of their land for 
the supply of the foreign slave-market ! But if colonies 
of civilized and Christian men of the coloured race 
were established along the coast of Africa, they would 
soon be able to defy any white man to take a single slave 
from that coast. 

" But the gradual elevation of the native African race, 
which will be the necessary and direct result of the 
operations of your Society, is a still more important 
consideration than even the extinction of the African 
slave-trade. The African colonist will not embark 
alone for the land of his fathers. The minister of re- 
ligion and the missionary to the heathen will go along 
with him to second his humble efforts to extend the 
blessings of civilization and religion to the numerous 
tribes of Africa ; for * Ethiopia is already stretching out 
her hands unto God.' The field for Christian coloni- 
zation in Africa is absolutely unbounded ; and the 
prospect as well for the mercantile man as for the 
Christian philanthropist, is favourable in the highest 
degree. 

" And let it be remembered by all here present, that 
America is peculiarly called by Divine Providence to 
the great work of colonizing Africa. Great Britain, as 
you are all doubtless aware, has all the wealth and 
enterprise that are requisite for such an undertaking ; 
but she wants the men that are capable of carrying it 
out. She has no such men as are fitted by the pecu- 
liarity of their physical constitution, by their previous 
habits and training, and, above all, by their Christian 
character for the colonization of Africa. Without such 
men, neither wealth nor enterprise will avail for this 
great work. But America has such men in thousands 
among her coloured population — men, who if not Af- 
ricans born, are at least Africans by descent, and phy- 
sical constitution, and are, therefore, fitted to stand the 
climate of their new land. The previous habits and 

2 r 2 



462 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

training of these men — I refer particularly to those in 
the Southern States — fit them in a peculiar manner 
for being successful colonists in the equatorial regions 
of Africa ; and as very many of them are pious and 
intelligent members of Christian churches, they are 
quite capable of discharging the important duties of 
self-government, and of eventually erecting a series of 
independent and flourishing States on the African coast, 
on the basis of the free institutions of America. 

" I may be permitted to remark, in passing, that it 
appears almost incredible to me that men, professing 
philanthropy, and a sincere desire for the welfare and 
advancement of Africa, should yet allow themselves to 
be so warped by their peculiar theories on the subject 
of Abolition, as to use their influence to prevent valu- 
able men of the coloured race — which I understand has 
been done in many instances — from embarking in this 
great enterprise, an enterprise so peculiarly worthy of 
the man of noble daring. Is it possible that the cause 
of Abolition should suffer in America by sending forth 
even thousands of the most intelligent and pious of the 
coloured race in this country to plant a Christian State 
on the shores of Africa, and to labour for the moral 
regeneration of that benighted and unhappy land ? On 
the contrary, is there any thing that tends so strongly 
to elevate either a country or a nation as the thought 
that that country or nation has given birth to eminent 
men ? It is of no consequence on what field, for 
example, the patriot has either fought or fallen. It is 
the simple fact, apart from all the accidents of time and 
place, that honours his country, and ennobles his peo- 
ple. What is it that embalms the memory of the 
Puritans, and throws a halo of glory around their 
names ? Is it not the simple fact that they came forth 
from the land of their fathers, to plant Christ's gospel 
among the heathen in this once benighted land, and to 
rear that fair structure of civil and religious liberty, of 



AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 468 

which they bequeathed the custody and the blessings 
to their latest posterity ? And is there no room, I 
would ask, for a few coloured Puritans in Africa ? Is 
there no need for such philanthropists there ? 

" To return to our proper subject — It is long since 
Great Britain first attempted to colonize Africa — purely 
from motives of benevolence ; and the history of her 
efforts in that benevolent undertaking abundantly con- 
firms what I have already stated. The expenditure of 
human life, as well as of British money in the colony 
of Sierra Leone, has been prodigious. The practice of 
employing white men exclusively in offices of trust in 
that colony, has kept the African colonists in a state of 
pupilage, if not of degradation, and exposed them in 
many instances to the evil example of most unprincipled 
men. And, in regard to the means of providing for 
the spiritual welfare of such colonies at the disposal of 
Great Britain, — or, rather, of the Christian public there 
— I may mention the fact, that when a Scotch Presby- 
terian clergyman, on his way to the Cape of Good 
Hope, was accidentally driven, a few years ago, into 
the island of Fernando Po, the Kroomen of the British 
settlement on that island, who had never had a minis- 
ter of any denomination among them, offered to raise a 
liberal salary for his support to induce him to remain 
among them. The clergyman I refer to, however, had 
been specially designated to a different field ; and, I am 
sorry to add, that, so far as I know, the Kroomen have 
been left without a minister of any denomination to 
the present day. 

" Compared with this state of things how different is 
the picture which your colony of Liberia presents J The 
whole cost of the establishment of that colony has been 
a mere trifle, when expressed in British money. The 
loss of life also has been comparatively small, as but 
few white men have gone to Liberia in any capacity. 
Public offices of all kinds are there held by Africans 



464 SLAVERY, ABOLITION, 

who have thus been intrusted from the first with the 
exercise of self-government ; and so well have the or- 
dinances of religion been supplied to the little com- 
munity, that there are now, I am informed, upwards of 
forty missionaries labouring in that most important and 
promising field. 

" I repeat it, therefore, America has the very thing that 
Great Britain wants for the colonization of Africa, and 
without which Africa can never be colonized. She has 
the men who are fitted in every way for the accomplish- 
ment of this great object. It is evident, therefore, 
that God has fitted this nation in a peculiar manner for 
this important work, and that his providence is calling 
you to engage in it, in a language which it is impossible 
to mistake. Yes, Divine Providence is calling you to 
give back civilization and religion to Africa, as a com- 
pensation for the wrongs she has hitherto experienced 
at your hands. 

" And believe me, the work of colonizing Africa, to 
which this nation is thus so evidently called, is not a 
work of duty merely; it is a work of real national glory. 
What is it that constitutes the peculiar honour of Great 
Britain among the nations of the earth ? Is it her vast 
commerce ? Is it her unbounded wealth ? Is it her vic- 
tories either by sea or by land ? Is it the extent of her 
conquests ? No : it is simply the fact of her being the 
planter of flourishing colonies, the mother of a whole 
family of nations. It is the fact — a fact which pos- 
terity can never forget, although Britain herself should 
pass away from the field of existence, and leave not a 
wreck behind — it is the fact that she has caused her 
energetic people, her noble language, her equitable 
laws, and her Protestant religion, to be naturalized in 
every climate, and under every sky. What, for instance, 
are the triumphs of Trafalgar or Waterloo, to the honour 
and glory of having been the mother country of such a 
nation as this ? 






AND AFRICAN COLONIZATION. 465 

"And Great Britain, let me remind you, is still fulfilling 
her peculiar vocation in this important respect, and se- 
curing for herself in some future day, additional honour 
and glory in those far distant lands, in which the good 
providence of God has appointed my own lot. At this 
moment she is raising up a second America in the 
Southern Hemisphere, to tread, I trust, the same path 
of glory as this great nation has trodden in the North. 

" Let every American, then, bear in mind, that in this 
peculiar field of national honour and glory — not the 
honour and glory of fools, that consists merely in the 
pomp and circumstance of war, and the garment rolled 
in blood, but real honour and true glory — let every 
American bear in mind that in this peculiar field, there 
is still a higher prize to be gained than Great Britain 
herself has ever won. For what honour shall be deemed 
due by our children's children to the nation that shall 
renovate and regenerate Africa ? Surely, in the estima- 
tion of an enlightened posterity, a diadem of glory 
will encircle the brow of that nation, till the stream of 
time shall have ceased to flow. 

•' Let me entreat you, therefore, as a disinterested 
foreigner, who will never see your faces again, to be true 
to yourselves and to your country, and this splendid 
prize, this immortal honour, this unfading glory, will be 
yours. There is no nation upon earth that can take it 
from you. There is no other nation up£>n earth that has 
such means at its command as you possess for the rege- 
neration of Africa ! Go, therefore, where glory waits 
you, and may God speed your way !.?' 



POSTSCRIPT. 



As the preceding chapter was in type before I had an 
opportunity of reading the recent work of that eminent 
philanthropist, Sir T. F. Buxton, entitled " The African 
Slave Trade and its Remedy," I subjoin, by way o. 
Postscript, the following additional remarks that have 
occurred to me after the perusal of that able and spirit- 
stirring production. 

I entirely agree with Sir Thomas Buxton in regard- 
ing the coast of Africa, and not that of America, as 
the proper place for the employment of a naval squad- 
ron to put down the Slave Trade. On this point the 
following extract of a Despatch, addressed by Governor 
Buchanan, of Liberia, to the Directors of the Ameri- 
can Colonization Society, of date " Government House, 
Monrovia, 6th Nov. 1839," is most opportune. 

" The Slave Trade is still prosecuted with vigour at 
different points along the coast, though, in our imme- 
diate neighbourhood we have pretty effectually brought 
it to an end. I have heard, however, since commenc- 
ing this, that a Frenchman has come into Little Bassa, 
and commenced landing goods for the prosecution of 
this business, at the same place where we had the bat- 
tle last July. I can scarcely credit the report, but, if 
true, we shall send him off. They say he has come 



FOSTSCIUPT. 467 

with an abundant armament, and prepared to sustain 
his position ; but, if so, I hope to give you a good ac- 
count of him by my next despatch. 

" Enclosed you will find a complete list of the Ame- 
rican vessels which have been during the summer and 
now are engaged in the slave trade on this coast, all of 
which have been forwarded to Mr. Paulding. When 
at Sierra Leone, I visited a small schooner of one hun- 
dred and twenty tons, which was just brought in with 
four hundred and twenty-seven slaves on board. Of all 
the scenes of misery I ever saw, this was the most 
painful. My cheek tinged with shame and indignation 
when I was told that this same vessel (the Mary Cush- 
ing) had come on to the coast and was sailed for some 
time, until her cargo was ready, under American co- 
lours. When taken, her American captain was on 
board. He had not arrived when I left Sierra Leone, 
but the Governor, at my instance, promised to send 
him down here and deliver him up to me, to be sent to 
the United States. Is there any hope that our Go- 
vernment will hang him ? 

" Since my collision with the slavers in July, New 
Cesters has been in a state of continual alarm and ex- 
citement, in expectation daily of an attack from here. 
Unfortunately, we have not been in a position to move 
against them, or we might easily, at any moment, have 
broken up that nest of iniquity. We have a right, (by 
treaty made some years since,) to proclaim jurisdiction 
over that place, and pronounce the slave trade there 
piracy. But I would do nothing in a matter involving 
such serious consequences without consulting the Com- 
mittee. Please instruct me. 

" There are about two thousand slaves now at New 
Cesters and Gallinas. The whole country, for five hun- 
dred miles to the right and left of us, has been devas- 
tated with wars, caused entirely by the slave trade 5 
throughout the whole summer j God only knows where 



468 POSTSCRIPT. 

it is to end. But it does appear disgraceful to Chris- 
tian nations to allow such wide-spread butchery of the 
human species at the hands of a handful of miscreants. 
With one hundred men and an armed schooner at my 
command for six months, I would fledge myself to 
break up this horrid traffic along seven hundred miles 
of coast,* and give peace and comparative happiness 
to the miserable inhabitants of a hundred tribes "\ 

It is, therefore, by breaking up the slave factories on 
shore, rather than by endeavouring to catch the slavers 
at sea, that Governor Buchanan proposes to accom- 
plish his object ; and for such a purpose, as well as for 
any direct efforts for the civilization of the native Afri- 
cans, the acquisition of the rights of sovereignty over 
an extensive territory in each of the principal slave- 
trading districts in Africa, would be a matter of indis- 
pensable necessity. Such territory, however, as has 
been shown by Sir T. F. Buxton, and proved by actual 
experience in Liberia, could be obtained with the ut- 
most facility, and at a comparatively trifling expense ; 
the African chiefs being quite willing to dispose of 
the sovereignty of their respective territories in the 
districts in question, and to place themselves, and their 
people, either under British or Liberian protection. 
The interests of humanity, therefore, require that Great 
Britain and America, or rather Liberia, should respec- 
tively extend their jurisdiction in this way as much as 
possible, and proclaiming the slave-trade in their re- 
spective territories, and in all the rivers or waters thereto 
belonging, as piracy, should hang up as a pirate every 
slave-trader, of whatever nation, that should be proved, 
before a duly constituted Colonial court, to have been 
carrying on his infamous traffic within the forbidden 

* By destroying the factories on shore — (this the British do not 
attempt.) 

f The African Repository and Colo 'rial Journal. Washington, 
March, 1840. Pages 74, 75. 



POSTSCRIPT. 469 

limits. To give such enemies of the human race the 
benefit of a trial before a Mixed Commission Court, 
either in Cuba or the Brazils, is notoriously absurd. 

In the establishment of colonies in Africa, which Sir 
Thomas Buxton so strongly recommends, he has un- 
questionably pointed out the only effectual means of at 
once extinguishing the slave-trade, and elevating the 
entire African race. The establishment of colonies, 
conducted on right principles, at all the more important 
localities, both on the coast and in the interior, would 
undoubtedly lead to both of these most desirable results. 
And it cannot be doubted that through such Colonies 
the three great staple articles of slave produce — sugar, 
cotton, and coffee, for all of which the soil and climate 
of Africa are highly favourable — might very soon be 
raised by means of free labour in the equatorial regions 
of that continent, to such an extent as eventually to re- 
duce the value of slave labour to an amount that would 
render it no longer profitable in any country in the 
world. I am sorry, however, to observe that Sir T. 
Buxton has not adverted to a point of the utmost im- 
portance in the formation of such Colonies, and on 
which, I conceive, their success and prosperity will 
in great measure, if not entirely, depend. If the 
proposed Colonies should be formed on the Siena 
Leone principle — that of having all offices of trust 
and emolument held by Europeans, by whom the 
Africans will naturally be regarded as an inferior and 
subject race — the undertaking will most certainly prove 
a failure, like that of the colony of Sierra Leone, on Sir 
T. Buxton's own showing. To ensure their success, the 
proposed colonies must be established on the American 
or Liberian principle — that of constituting a commu- 
nity purely African, in which tue coloured man alone 
will be eligible to office, or admissible to the rights 
of citizenship.* 

* Lieut.-Genenil Bugeaucl, of the French army of Algiers, one 



470 POSTSCRIPT. 

Now, I confess I almost despair of the British Go- 
vernment, or of any Society in this country, ever form- 
ing an African colony on such principles. The British 
principle of colonization — whether in Canada, in Aus- 
tralia, or in South Africa — is, that man is incapable of 
self-government, that he is, by no means to be con- 
stituted 

" Lord of himself — that heritage of woe," 

but that he must be governed, forsooth, or rather made 
perfectly miserable and reduced to a mere cipher in his 
adopted country, by the misgovernment of people at 
home, who either know nothing of his case and circum- 
stances, or know them only through the information of 
individuals whose interest it is to misrepresent them. 
The American principle of colonization, on the con- 
trary, is, that man — although only yesterday a slave or 
recaptured African — is capable of self-government, and 
that it is of the utmost importance both for his temporal 

of the Presidents of the African Institute of France, observes in a 
letter to M le Chevalier Hippolyte de Saint- Anthoine, Secretary- 
General of the African Institute, u Je conseille a l'lnstitut de pro- 
pager l'idee, que sans la colonisatioji Europeenne, il n'y a rien de 
solide a fonder en Afrique." Concurring entirely in this idea as to 
Northern Africa, I must nevertheless be permitted to observe, that 
it by no means applies to the case of the intertropical regions of 
that continent. There, the colonization must be purely African — 
either from the British West Indies or from the United States ; as no 
European colonists could stand the climate, on the one hand, and 
as the influence of such colonists, in creating a caste of blood, on 
the other, would be decidedly prejudicial to the great object in view, 
the gradual elevation of the entire African race. But civilized and 
Christian men of that race, introduced into intertropical Africa from 
the United States, or the British West Indies, are in reality all that 
is implied in General Bugeaud's cofo?iisatio?i Europeenne for North- 
ern Africa; as that idea merely implies an importation into Africa 
of the civilization and the Christianity of Europe, in the persons of 
civilized and Christian men. In Algiers these men must be Euro- 
peans ; but in Liberia, and on the banks of the Niger, they must be 
Africans. 



POSTSCRIPT. 471 

and spiritual welfare that he should be taught to exer- 
cise himself in the art from the very first. The result 
of the former of these principles, as in Sierra Leone, 
is prodigious expense and ultimate failure ; that of the 
latter, as in Liberia, is a mere trifle of expense, and 
astonishing success. I confess however I have not much 
hope that either the British Government, on the one 
hand, or the men who form philanthropic societies in 
London, on the other, will take either the warning or 
the example in these cases. Not only the Governor, 
but all the subordinate heads of departments in the 
proposed colonies, will, in all likelihood, be Europeans, 
and will, therefore, from the first, constitute a separate 
caste in society, and look down upon the native Afri- 
cans, as the latter have hitherto been uniformly looked 
down upon, not only in America, but wherever they have 
come in contact with white men. In short, the mea- 
sure that constitutes the main secret of the remarkable 
success of the American colony of Liberia is the very 
last that either the British Government or a British 
Society will be likely to adopt. 

It is unreasonable to visit the Americans, as is gene- 
rally done in this country, with exclusive condemna- 
tion for their proscription of the African race. The 
iniquity is of universal prevalence, wherever the white 
man has come in contact with the negro beyond seas ; 
for, although public opinion in this country — where, it 
must be borne in mind, the instances of such contact 
are extremely rare — may be strong enough to neutralize 
the anti-christian and inhuman feeling, there are none 
readier than natives of Great Britain and Ireland to 
make common cause with the aristocracy of colour even 
in our own colonies. In the Isle of France, and at the 
Cape of Good Hope — not to speak of the West Indies 
at all — the proscription of the coloured race is as com- 
plete and entire as it is any where in America, and, as 
if Frenchmen and Dutchmen ought to be our model in 



'472 POSTSCRIPT. 

this particular, attempts have recently been made to 
extend the iniquity even to the Australian colonies, and 
to dignify it with the sanctions of religion. A highly 
respectable and comparatively wealthy family, of Port 
Louis, in the Isle of France, having a very slight infu- 
sion of African blood in their veins, and suffering under 
the usual consequences of that insurmountable misfor- 
tune in the Mauritius, resolved to emigrate to New 
South Wales, in the hope of being admitted to an 
equality with the rest of mankind, in a colony of ex- 
clusively British origin — a hope which was surely rea- 
sonable enough in these days of liberal opinions in the 
mother country. Being zealously attached to the Ro- 
mish communion, they were liberal with their money on 
all occasions of subscriptions or donations — and these 
were not unfrequent — for the Roman Catholic Church 
in Sydney ; and the ladies of the family had even pre- 
sented to the church some of those frippery lace orna- 
ments, or Romish rags, as honest Andrew Melville called 
them, that are used in Roman Catholic countries for 
the adorning of the altar. But even in New South 
Wales the caste of blood was remembered against them, 
and a sentence of proscription, on the part of the Irish 
Roman Catholic families of the place, was the bitter 
award they were doomed to experience, even from 
O'Connellites and Repealers, in a British colony ! Nay, 
the very priests sanctioned the monstrous iniquity, by 
keeping aloof from their society, except in cases of ne- 
cessity ! In short, it is in Africa alone that the great 
battle for the extinction of the slave-trade, for the abo- 
lition of slavery, and last, but not least of all, for the 
universal elevation of the African race to a level with 
the other members of Adam's great family, can ever be 
successfully fought : and the men to fight this battle 
must be Africans exclusively. 

In regard to the agents in the proposed work of civi- 
lization, Sir T. Buxton expects that many useful men 



POSTSCRIPT. 473 

for such a purpose will be found among the Christian 
negroes in the West Indies and at Sierra Leone. And 
if academies and colleges were to be formed in these 
localities respectively, for the express purpose of train- 
ing up intelligent and promising Africans of suitable 
character as schoolmasters, ministers of religion, and 
missionaries to the heathen in Africa, there is no doubt 
that a large and regular supply of well qualified labourers 
would soon be created. But America can at once 
bring into the field ten such labourers for every one that 
Great Britain can command ; and in this consists the 
peculiar adaptation of the African colonization enter- 
prise to the goings forth of American philanthropy.* 
If the proposed African colonies should be really colo- 
nies of Africans exclusively, under British protection, 
numerous agents of the best possible description — 
teachers, preachers, mechanics, and labourers of all 
kinds — could doubtless be obtained with facility, and at 
very moderate salaries, in the United States. But if 
these colonies are to be established on the Sierra Leone 
principle, the American Africans ought not to be en- 
couraged to join in the undertaking in any way. 

At all events, Great Britain and America are now for 
the first time to be engaged in a species of honourable 
rivalry in the noblest undertaking that can possibly en- 

* The following is M. de Tocqueville's opinion of the American 
Colonization enterprise : — " Two hundred years have now elapsed 
since the inhabitants of Europe undertook to tear the negro from 
his family and his home, in order to transport him to the shores of 
North America ; at the present day the European settlers are en- 
gaged in sending back the descendants of those very negroes, to the 
continent from which they were originally taken ; and the barbarous 
Africans have been brought into contact with civilization in the 
midst of bondage, and have become acquainted with free political 
institutions in slavery. Up to the present time Africa has been 
closed against the arts and sciences of the whites ; but the inven- 
tions of Europe will perhaps penetrate into those regions now that 
they are introduced by Africans themselves. The settlement of 
Liberia is founded upon a lofty and a most fruitful idea." 



474 POSTSCRIPT. 

gage the energies of civilized and Christian men — I 
mean the civilization and regeneration of Africa. Coa- 
lition in such an undertaking, on the part of the two 
nations, or their respective Societies, is neither to be 
expected nor desired. The field is wide enough for 
both, and mutual co-operation in the pursuit of the com- 
mon object, which is all that is requisite in the case, 
will be mutually beneficial. Let the Americans, there- 
fore, come forward for the support of their colonization 
enterprise cordially and unanimously. Let them regard 
it as a national concern, as the civilization of Africa is 
now regarded in Great Britain. Let the separate State 
legislatures take it up as a matter alike of interest and 
of duty, and make the requisite appropriations for carry- 
ing out its great and important objects. So shall the 
Americans consult alike their national honour and their 
national interest. So shall America wipe off the re- 
proach of her youth, and so shall the blessings she 
confers on Africa be returned in blessings innumerable 
upon herself. 



THE END. 



91 



J l 



W. Tyler, Printer, 5, Bolt Court, Fleet Street. 





















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